| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave by Frederick Douglass: engaged. Every moment they spent in that school,
they were liable to be taken up, and given thirty-
nine lashes. They came because they wished to
learn. Their minds had been starved by their cruel
masters. They had been shut up in mental darkness.
I taught them, because it was the delight of my
soul to be doing something that looked like better-
ing the condition of my race. I kept up my school
nearly the whole year I lived with Mr. Freeland;
and, beside my Sabbath school, I devoted three eve-
nings in the week, during the winter, to teaching the
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Horse's Tale by Mark Twain: born - "
"Can speak with authority for that patch of paradise? Well, I can.
Like the Don! like Sancho! This is the correct Andalusian dawn now
- crisp, fresh, dewy, fragrant, pungent - "
"'What though the spicy breezes
Blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle - '
- GIT up, you old cow! stumbling like that when we've just been
praising you! out on a scout and can't live up to the honor any
better than that? Antonio, how long have you been out here in the
Plains and the Rockies?"
"More than thirteen years."
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: suddenly upon its victims, like a Thug; sometimes it lays a
regular siege and creeps upon their citadel during a score of
years. And when the business is done, there is sore havoc
made in other people's lives, and a pin knocked out by which
many subsidiary friendships hung together. There are empty
chairs, solitary walks, and single beds at night. Again, in
taking away our friends, death does not take them away
utterly, but leaves behind a mocking, tragical, and soon
intolerable residue, which must be hurriedly concealed. Hence
a whole chapter of sights and customs striking to the mind,
from the pyramids of Egypt to the gibbets and dule trees of
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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 Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche: When ye are exalted above praise and blame, and your will would command all
things, as a loving one's will: there is the origin of your virtue.
When ye despise pleasant things, and the effeminate couch, and cannot couch
far enough from the effeminate: there is the origin of your virtue.
When ye are willers of one will, and when that change of every need is
needful to you: there is the origin of your virtue.
Verily, a new good and evil is it! Verily, a new deep murmuring, and the
voice of a new fountain!
Power is it, this new virtue; a ruling thought is it, and around it a
subtle soul: a golden sun, with the serpent of knowledge around it.
2.
Thus Spake Zarathustra |
