| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson: of the night and the curtained room, Mr. Enfield's tale went by
before his mind in a scroll of lighted pictures. He would be
aware of the great field of lamps of a nocturnal city; then of the
figure of a man walking swiftly; then of a child running from the
doctor's; and then these met, and that human Juggernaut trod the
child down and passed on regardless of her screams. Or else he
would see a room in a rich house, where his friend lay asleep,
dreaming and smiling at his dreams; and then the door of that room
would be opened, the curtains of the bed plucked apart, the
sleeper recalled, and lo! there would stand by his side a figure
to whom power was given, and even at that dead hour, he must rise
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Poems of Goethe, Bowring, Tr. by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Solace when fortune proves unkind,
And be newborn through many a kiss,
That he receives with inward bliss;
When'er he clasps thee to his breast.
May he from all his toils find rest
When he in thy dear arms shall sink,
May he new life and vigour drink:
Fresh joys of youth shalt thou obtain,
In merry jest rejoice again.
With raillery and roguish spite,
Thou now shalt tease him, now delight.
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche: philosophy; whoever, with an Asiatic and super-Asiatic eye, has
actually looked inside, and into the most world-renouncing of all
possible modes of thought--beyond good and evil, and no longer
like Buddha and Schopenhauer, under the dominion and delusion of
morality,--whoever has done this, has perhaps just thereby,
without really desiring it, opened his eyes to behold the
opposite ideal: the ideal of the most world-approving, exuberant,
and vivacious man, who has not only learnt to compromise and
arrange with that which was and is, but wishes to have it again
AS IT WAS AND IS, for all eternity, insatiably calling out de
capo, not only to himself, but to the whole piece and play; and
Beyond Good and Evil |
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 Egmont by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe: will depopulate the country.
Regent. Have you forgotten with what aversion the mere suggestion of
toleration was rejected by my brother? Know you not, how in every letter
he urgently recommends to me the maintenance of the true faith? That he
will not hear of tranquility and order being restored at the expense of
religion? Even in the provinces, does he not maintain spies, unknown to
us, in order to ascertain who inclines to the new doctrines? Has he not, to
our astonishment, named to us this or that individual residing in our very
neighbourhood, who, without its being known, was obnoxious to the
charge of heresy? Does he not enjoin harshness and severity? and am I to
be lenient? Am I to recommend for his adoption measures of indulgence
Egmont |
