| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Four Arthurian Romances by Chretien DeTroyes: with the other, without giving rise to noise and contention, as
soon as each knew of the other's presence. But upon the ground-
floor there may be several apartments: for there are halls and
sleeping-rooms. It may be the same in this case: I think Love
had ensconced himself in some hidden room, while Hate had betaken
herself to the balconies looking on the high-road, because she
wishes to be seen. Just now Hate is in the saddle, and spurs and
pricks forward as she can, to get ahead of Love who is indisposed
to move. Ah! Love, what has become of thee? Come out now, and
thou shalt see what a host has been brought up and opposed to
thee by the enemies of thy friends. The enemies are these very
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: their muscles seemed to ask but one thing--not to be disturbed.
I remember those girls merely as faces in the schoolroom, gay and rosy,
or listless and dull, cut off below the shoulders, like cherubs,
by the ink-smeared tops of the high desks that were surely put
there to make us round-shouldered and hollow-chested.
The daughters of Black Hawk merchants had a confident, unenquiring
belief that they were `refined,' and that the country girls,
who `worked out,' were not. The American farmers in our county
were quite as hard-pressed as their neighbours from other countries.
All alike had come to Nebraska with little capital and no knowledge
of the soil they must subdue. All had borrowed money on their land.
My Antonia |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche: failure.
Beyond all these do I look, as a dog looketh over the backs of thronging
flocks of sheep. They are petty, good-wooled, good-willed, grey people.
As the heron looketh contemptuously at shallow pools, with backward-bent
head, so do I look at the throng of grey little waves and wills and souls.
Too long have we acknowledged them to be right, those petty people: SO we
have at last given them power as well;--and now do they teach that 'good is
only what petty people call good.'
And 'truth' is at present what the preacher spake who himself sprang from
them, that singular saint and advocate of the petty people, who testified
of himself: 'I--am the truth.'
Thus Spake Zarathustra |
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Pericles by William Shakespeare: I knew him tyrannous; and tyrants' fears
Decrease not, but grow faster than the years:
And should he doubt it, as no doubt he doth,
That I should open to the listening air
How many worthy princes' bloods were shed,
To keep his bed of blackness unlaid ope,
To lop that doubt, he'll fill this land with arms,
And make pretence of wrong that I have done him;
When all, for mine, if I may call offence,
Must feel war's blow, who spares not innocence:
Which love to all, of which thyself art one,
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