| 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: there are new devotees therein, and the atmosphere of devotees.
They sit for long evenings beside one another, and say: "Let us again
become like little children and say, 'good God!'"--ruined in mouths and
stomachs by the pious confectioners.
Or they look for long evenings at a crafty, lurking cross-spider, that
preacheth prudence to the spiders themselves, and teacheth that "under
crosses it is good for cobweb-spinning!"
Or they sit all day at swamps with angle-rods, and on that account think
themselves PROFOUND; but whoever fisheth where there are no fish, I do not
even call him superficial!
Or they learn in godly-gay style to play the harp with a hymn-poet, who
Thus Spake Zarathustra |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy: had stretched one arm so high above her coiled-up cable
of hair that he could see its satin delicacy above the
sunburn; her face was flushed with sleep, and her
eyelids hung heavy over their pupils. The brim-fulness
of her nature breathed from her. It was a moment when a
woman's soul is more incarnate than at any other time;
when the most spiritual beauty bespeaks itself flesh;
and sex takes the outside place in the presentation.
Then those eyes flashed brightly through their filmy
heaviness, before the remainder of her face was well
awake. With an oddly compounded look of gladness,
Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman |
