| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells: Rosamund queens it a rose, deep rose;
But the lady I love is like sunshine in April weather,
She gleams and gladdens, she warms--and goes.'
"Crude, I admit. But let that verse tell my secret. All bad
verse--originally the epigram was Lang's, I believe--is written
in a state of emotion.
"My dear Miss Stanley, when I talked to you the other afternoon
of work and politics and such-like things, my mind was all the
time resenting it beyond measure. There we were discussing
whether you should have a vote, and I remembered the last
occasion we met it was about your prospects of success in the
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Awakening & Selected Short Stories by Kate Chopin: She was very hungry. Another time she would have stilled the
cravings for food until reaching her own home, where she would have
brewed herself a cup of tea and taken a snack of anything that was
available. But the impulse that was guiding her would not suffer her
to entertain any such thought.
There was a restaurant at the corner. She had never entered
its doors; from the outside she had sometimes caught glimpses of
spotless damask and shining crystal, and soft-stepping waiters
serving people of fashion.
When she entered her appearance created no surprise, no
consternation, as she had half feared it might. She seated herself
Awakening & Selected Short Stories |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Master Key by L. Frank Baum: with the spear, Rob turned his electric tube upon him and keeled him
over like a ten-pin.
The natives, who had looked up at his cry of pain, again prostrated
themselves, kicking their toes against the ground in a terrified
tattoo at this new evidence of the god's powers.
The situation was growing somewhat strained by this time, and Rob did
not know what the savages would decide to do next; so he thought it
best to move away from them, since he was unable to rise to a greater
height. He turned the indicator towards the south, where a level
space appeared between the trees; but instead of taking that direction
he moved towards the northeast, a proof that his machine had now become
The Master Key |
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 Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche: tribune-bawler). Only, that it is necessary with such a desire to
be clear WHAT spectacle one will see in any case--merely a
satyric play, merely an epilogue farce, merely the continued
proof that the long, real tragedy IS AT AN END, supposing that
every philosophy has been a long tragedy in its origin.
26. Every select man strives instinctively for a citadel and a
privacy, where he is FREE from the crowd, the many, the majority-
-where he may forget "men who are the rule," as their exception;-
-exclusive only of the case in which he is pushed straight to
such men by a still stronger instinct, as a discerner in the
great and exceptional sense. Whoever, in intercourse with men,
Beyond Good and Evil |
