| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche: their eyes and ears--the first artists of universal literary
culture--for the most part even themselves writers, poets,
intermediaries and blenders of the arts and the senses (Wagner,
as musician is reckoned among painters, as poet among musicians,
as artist generally among actors); all of them fanatics for
EXPRESSION "at any cost"--I specially mention Delacroix, the
nearest related to Wagner; all of them great discoverers in the
realm of the sublime, also of the loathsome and dreadful, still
greater discoverers in effect, in display, in the art of the
show-shop; all of them talented far beyond their genius, out and
out VIRTUOSI, with mysterious accesses to all that seduces,
Beyond Good and Evil |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from What is Man? by Mark Twain: engages respect, esteem, affection, and homage. Her tastes, her
instincts, and her aspirations were all high and fine and all her
life her heart and brain were busy with activities of a noble
sort. She had had bitter griefs, but they did not sour her
spirit, and she had had the highest honors in the world's gift,
but she went her simple way unspoiled. She knew all ranks, and
won them all, and made them her friends. An English fisherman's
wife said, "When a body was in trouble she didn't send her help,
she brought it herself." Crowns have adorned others, but she
adorned her crowns.
It was a swift celebrity the assassin achieved. And it is
What is Man? |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Old Indian Legends by Zitkala-Sa: A young woman, carrying on her strong back a bundle of tightly
bound willow sticks, passed near by the lonely teepee. She heard
the wailing man's voice. She paused to listen to the sad words.
Looking around she saw nowhere a human creature. "It may be a
spirit," thought she.
"Oh! cut me loose! set me free! Iktomi has played me false!
He has made me bark of his tree!" cried the voice again.
The young woman dropped her pack of firewood to the ground.
With her stone axe she hurried to the tree. There before her
astonished eyes clung a young brave close to the tree.
Too shy for words, yet too kind-hearted to leave the stranger
|
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 On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: known to be a sign of incipient fertilisation. From this extreme degree of
sterility we have self-fertilised hybrids producing a greater and greater
number of seeds up to perfect fertility.
Hybrids from two species which are very difficult to cross, and which
rarely produce any offspring, are generally very sterile; but the
parallelism between the difficulty of making a first cross, and the
sterility of the hybrids thus produced--two classes of facts which are
generally confounded together--is by no means strict. There are many
cases, in which two pure species can be united with unusual facility, and
produce numerous hybrid-offspring, yet these hybrids are remarkably
sterile. On the other hand, there are species which can be crossed very
On the Origin of Species |
