| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche: conscience of their age. In putting the vivisector's knife to the
breast of the very VIRTUES OF THEIR AGE, they have betrayed their
own secret; it has been for the sake of a NEW greatness of man, a
new untrodden path to his aggrandizement. They have always
disclosed how much hypocrisy, indolence, self-indulgence, and
self-neglect, how much falsehood was concealed under the most
venerated types of contemporary morality, how much virtue was
OUTLIVED, they have always said "We must remove hence to where
YOU are least at home" In the face of a world of "modern ideas,"
which would like to confine every one in a corner, in a
"specialty," a philosopher, if there could be philosophers
Beyond Good and Evil |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: SOCRATES: Put the question to him, Chaerephon.
CHAEREPHON: What question?
SOCRATES: Who is he?--such a question as would elicit from a man the
answer, 'I am a cobbler.'
Polus suggests that Gorgias may be tired, and desires to answer for him.
'Who is Gorgias?' asks Chaerephon, imitating the manner of his master
Socrates. 'One of the best of men, and a proficient in the best and
noblest of experimental arts,' etc., replies Polus, in rhetorical and
balanced phrases. Socrates is dissatisfied at the length and unmeaningness
of the answer; he tells the disconcerted volunteer that he has mistaken the
quality for the nature of the art, and remarks to Gorgias, that Polus has
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad: It is difficult to express how much that pro-
nouncement comforted me. The doctor's round,
full face framed in a light-coloured whisker was the
perfection of a dignified amenity. He was the only
human being in the world who seemed to take the
slightest interest in me. He would generally sit in
the cabin for half an hour or so at every visit.
I said to him one day:
"I suppose the only thing now is to take care of
them as you are doing till I can get the ship to
sea?"
The Shadow Line |
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 Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: I had hitherto seen only one side of the academy, the other being
appropriated to the advancers of speculative learning, of whom I
shall say something, when I have mentioned one illustrious person
more, who is called among them "the universal artist." He told
us "he had been thirty years employing his thoughts for the
improvement of human life." He had two large rooms full of
wonderful curiosities, and fifty men at work. Some were
condensing air into a dry tangible substance, by extracting the
nitre, and letting the aqueous or fluid particles percolate;
others softening marble, for pillows and pin-cushions; others
petrifying the hoofs of a living horse, to preserve them from
Gulliver's Travels |
