| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Bucky O'Connor by William MacLeod Raine: arms outstretched. Above and below each hand and on either side
of the swelling throat knives quivered in the frame wall. There
was a flash of steel, and the seventh knife sank into the wood so
close to the crisp curls that a lock hung by a hair, almost
completely severed by the blade. The boy choked back a scream,
his big brown eyes dilating with terror.
The bully sipped at his highball and deliberately selected
another knife. To Bucky's swift inspection it was plain he had
drunk too much and that a very little slip might make an end of
the boy. The fascinated horror in the lad's gaze showed that he
realized his danger.
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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: injury to the higher, rarer, and more privileged types of men.
Moral systems must be compelled first of all to bow before the
GRADATIONS OF RANK; their presumption must be driven home to
their conscience--until they thoroughly understand at last that
it is IMMORAL to say that 'what is right for one is proper for
another.'--So said my moralistic pedant and bonhomme. Did he
perhaps deserve to be laughed at when he thus exhorted systems of
morals to practise morality? But one should not be too much in
the right if one wishes to have the laughers on ONE'S OWN side; a
grain of wrong pertains even to good taste.
222. Wherever sympathy (fellow-suffering) is preached nowadays--
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 The Gentle Grafter by O. Henry: "I picks up my hat and starts for the door.
"'You ain't going, doc?' says the Mayor with a howl. 'You ain't going
away and leave me to die with this--superfluity of the clapboards, are
you?'
"'Common humanity, Dr. Whoa-ha,' says Mr. Biddle, 'ought to prevent
your deserting a fellow-human in distress.'
"'Dr. Waugh-hoo, when you get through plowing,' says I. And then I
walks back to the bed and throws back my long hair.
"'Mr. Mayor,' says I, 'there is only one hope for you. Drugs will do
you no good. But there is another power higher yet, although drugs are
high enough,' says I.
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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 My Aunt Margaret's Mirror by Walter Scott: strong, useful common sense, which was so long the prop of a
fallen family, are the last person whom I should have suspected
of such weakness."
"Neither would I deserve your suspicions, kinsman," answered Aunt
Margaret, "if we were speaking of any incident occurring in the
actual business of human life. But for all this, I have a sense
of superstition about me, which I do not wish to part with. It
is a feeling which separates me from this age, and links me with
that to which I am hastening; and even when it seems, as now, to
lead me to the brink of the grave, and bid me gaze on it, I do
not love that it should be dispelled. It soothes my imagination,
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