| 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: the world once seem to me.
Thus, once on a time, did I also cast my fancy beyond man, like all
backworldsmen. Beyond man, forsooth?
Ah, ye brethren, that God whom I created was human work and human madness,
like all the Gods!
A man was he, and only a poor fragment of a man and ego. Out of mine own
ashes and glow it came unto me, that phantom. And verily, it came not unto
me from the beyond!
What happened, my brethren? I surpassed myself, the suffering one; I
carried mine own ashes to the mountain; a brighter flame I contrived for
myself. And lo! Thereupon the phantom WITHDREW from me!
 Thus Spake Zarathustra |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Silas Marner by George Eliot: confidence that she loved him. As for the child, he would see that
it was cared for: he would never forsake it; he would do everything
but own it. Perhaps it would be just as happy in life without being
owned by its father, seeing that nobody could tell how things would
turn out, and that--is there any other reason wanted?--well,
then, that the father would be much happier without owning the
child.
CHAPTER XIV
There was a pauper's burial that week in Raveloe, and up Kench Yard
at Batherley it was known that the dark-haired woman with the fair
child, who had lately come to lodge there, was gone away again.
 Silas Marner |