| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Foolish Virgin by Thomas Dixon: deliberate menace.
"You're--not--going!"
"Get out of my way!" she cried defiantly.
His big jaw closed with a snap and his figure
became rigid. The candle's yellow light threw a
strange glare on his face, convulsed. The blue flames
of hell were in the glitter of his steel eyes.
Her heart sank in a dull wave of terror. She tried
to gauge the depth of his brutal rage. There was no
standard by which to measure it. She had never seen
that look in his face before. His whole being was
|
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: troublesome, as a painful compulsory obedience and state of
constraint; thinking itself is regarded by them as something slow
and hesitating, almost as a trouble, and often enough as "worthy
of the SWEAT of the noble"--but not at all as something easy and
divine, closely related to dancing and exuberance! "To think" and
to take a matter "seriously," "arduously"--that is one and the
same thing to them; such only has been their "experience."--
Artists have here perhaps a finer intuition; they who know only
too well that precisely when they no longer do anything
"arbitrarily," and everything of necessity, their feeling of
freedom, of subtlety, of power, of creatively fixing, disposing,
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 Professor by Charlotte Bronte: of M. Vandenhuten, who continued always our trusty and
well-beloved friend.
Frances was then a good and dear wife to me, because I was to her
a good, just, and faithful husband. What she would have been had
she married a harsh, envious, careless man--a profligate, a
prodigal, a drunkard, or a tyrant--is another question, and one
which I once propounded to her. Her answer, given after some
reflection, was--
"I should have tried to endure the evil or cure it for awhile;
and when I found it intolerable and incurable, I should have left
my torturer suddenly and silently."
The Professor |
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 Essays of Francis Bacon by Francis Bacon: face of the matter or chaos; then he breathed light,
into the face of man; and still he breatheth and in-
spireth light, into the face of his chosen. The poet,
that beautified the sect, that was otherwise in-
ferior to the rest, saith yet excellently well: It is a
pleasure, to stand upon the shore, and to see ships
tossed upon the sea; a pleasure, to stand in the win-
dow of a castle, and to see a battle, and the adven-
tures thereof below: but no pleasure is comparable
to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth
(a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is
Essays of Francis Bacon |
