| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche: about.
Such roving about christeneth itself "brotherly love"; with these words
hath there hitherto been the best lying and dissembling, and especially by
those who have been burdensome to every one.
And verily, it is no commandment for to-day and to-morrow to LEARN to love
oneself. Rather is it of all arts the finest, subtlest, last and
patientest.
For to its possessor is all possession well concealed, and of all treasure-
pits one's own is last excavated--so causeth the spirit of gravity.
Almost in the cradle are we apportioned with heavy words and worths:
"good" and "evil"--so calleth itself this dowry. For the sake of it we are
Thus Spake Zarathustra |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: dew and starlight, in which black things stood very still.
I thought I could see a kind of motion ahead of me.
I was strangely cocksure of everything that night.
I actually left the track and ran in a wide semicircle (I verily
believe chuckling to myself) so as to get in front of that stir,
of that motion I had seen--if indeed I had seen anything.
I was circumventing Kurtz as though it had been a boyish game.
"I came upon him, and, if he had not heard me coming,
I would have fallen over him, too, but he got up in time.
He rose, unsteady, long, pale, indistinct, like a vapour exhaled
by the earth, and swayed slightly, misty and silent before me;
Heart of Darkness |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Mrs. Warren's Profession by George Bernard Shaw: and Bizet's Carmen has captured the common playgoer; and there
is, flatly, no future now for any drama without music except the
drama of thought. The attempt to produce a genus of opera
without music (and this absurdity is what our fashionable
theatres have been driving at for a long time without knowing it)
is far less hopeful than my own determination to accept problem
as the normal materiel of the drama.
That this determination will throw me into a long conflict with
our theatre critics, and with the few playgoers who go to the
theatre as often as the critics, I well know; but I am too well
equipped for the strife to be deterred by it, or to bear malice
|
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 The Schoolmistress and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov: I know you cannot be my wife, but I want nothing, I ask nothing;
only know that I love you. Be silent, do not answer me, take no
notice of it, but only know that you are dear to me and let me
look at you."
His rapture affected me too; I looked at his enthusiastic face,
listened to his voice which mingled with the patter of the rain,
and stood as though spellbound, unable to stir.
I longed to go on endlessly looking at his shining eyes and
listening.
"You say nothing, and that is splendid," said Pyotr Sergeyitch.
"Go on being silent."
The Schoolmistress and Other Stories |
