| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft: to a rich old man, extremely jealous (no wonder, for she was a
charming creature); and that, in consequence of his treatment,
or something which hung on her mind, she had, during her first
lying-in, lost her senses."
What a subject of meditation--even to the very
confines of madness.
"Woman, fragile flower! why were you suffered to adorn a world
exposed to the inroad of such stormy elements?" thought Maria,
while the poor maniac's strain was still breathing on her ear,
and sinking into her very soul.
Towards the evening, Jemima brought her Rousseau's Heloise;
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche: they still remain our "friends."--Blessed are the forgetful: for
they "get the better" even of their blunders.
218. The psychologists of France--and where else are there still
psychologists nowadays?--have never yet exhausted their bitter
and manifold enjoyment of the betise bourgeoise, just as
though...in short, they betray something thereby. Flaubert, for
instance, the honest citizen of Rouen, neither saw, heard, nor
tasted anything else in the end; it was his mode of self-torment
and refined cruelty. As this is growing wearisome, I would now
recommend for a change something else for a pleasure--namely, the
unconscious astuteness with which good, fat, honest mediocrity
Beyond Good and Evil |
| 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: wolves was unheeded by the mice within the lighted buffalo skull.
They were feasting and dancing; they were singing and
laughing--those funny little furry fellows.
All the while across the dark from out the low river bottom
came that pair of fiery eyes.
Now closer and more swift, now fiercer and glaring, the eyes
moved toward the buffalo skull. All unconscious of those fearful
eyes, the happy mice nibbled at dried roots and venison. The
singers had started another song. The drummers beat the time,
turning their heads from side to side in rhythm. In a ring around
the fire hopped the mice, each bouncing hard on his two hind feet.
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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 Edingburgh Picturesque Notes by Robert Louis Stevenson: seven. They were miserably clad; and the pavement was so
cold, you would have thought no one could lay a naked
foot on it unflinching. Yet they came along waltzing, if
you please, while the elder sang a tune to give them
music. The person who saw this, and whose heart was full
of bitterness at the moment, pocketed a reproof which has
been of use to him ever since, and which he now hands on,
with his good wishes, to the reader.
At length, Edinburgh, with her satellite hills and
all the sloping country, are sheeted up in white. If it
has happened in the dark hours, nurses pluck their
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