| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: obscurity to world-wide fame--from postmaster of New Salem
village to President of the United States, from captain of a
backwoods volunteer company to Commander-in-Chief of the Army and
Navy, was neither sudden nor accidental, nor easy. He was both
ambitious and successful, but his ambition was moderate, and his
success was slow. And, because his success was slow, it never
outgrew either his judgment or his powers. Between the day when
he left his father's cabin and launched his canoe on the
headwaters of the Sangamon River to begin life on his own
account, and the day of his first inauguration, lay full thirty
years of toil, self-denial, patience; often of effort baffled, of
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The American by Henry James: that the young lady was very remarkable. "No, to tell the truth,
I didn't come for you," he said, "and I didn't expect to find you.
I was told," he added in a moment "that you had left your father."
"Quelle horreur!" cried Mademoiselle Nioche with a smile.
"Does one leave one's father? You have the proof of the contrary."
"Yes, convincing proof," said Newman glancing at M. Nioche.
The old man caught his glance obliquely, with his faded,
deprecating eye, and then, lifting his empty glass,
pretended to drink again.
"Who told you that?" Noemie demanded. "I know very well.
It was M. de Bellegarde. Why don't you say yes?
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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: according to the servile mode of thought, the good man must in
any case be the SAFE man: he is good-natured, easily deceived,
perhaps a little stupid, un bonhomme. Everywhere that slave-
morality gains the ascendancy, language shows a tendency to
approximate the significations of the words "good" and "stupid."-
-A last fundamental difference: the desire for FREEDOM, the
instinct for happiness and the refinements of the feeling of
liberty belong as necessarily to slave-morals and morality, as
artifice and enthusiasm in reverence and devotion are the regular
symptoms of an aristocratic mode of thinking and estimating.--
Hence we can understand without further detail why love AS A
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 Life in the Iron-Mills by Rebecca Davis: path, slowly came nearer, and threw the light across his bed on
his feet. He watched it steadily, as it crept up, inch by inch,
slowly. It seemed to him to carry with it a great silence. He
had been so hot and tired there always in the mills! The years
had been so fierce and cruel! There was coming now quiet and
coolness and sleep. His tense limbs relaxed, and settled in a
calm languor. The blood ran fainter and slow from his heart.
He did not think now with a savage anger of what might be and
was not; he was conscious only of deep stillness creeping over
him. At first he saw a sea of faces: the mill-men,--women he
had known, drunken and bloated,--Janey's timid and pitiful-poor
Life in the Iron-Mills |
