| 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: exploitation;--but why should one for ever use precisely these
words on which for ages a disparaging purpose has been stamped?
Even the organization within which, as was previously supposed,
the individuals treat each other as equal--it takes place in
every healthy aristocracy--must itself, if it be a living and not
a dying organization, do all that towards other bodies, which the
individuals within it refrain from doing to each other it will
have to be the incarnated Will to Power, it will endeavour to
grow, to gain ground, attract to itself and acquire ascendancy--
not owing to any morality or immorality, but because it LIVES,
and because life IS precisely Will to Power. On no point,
Beyond Good and Evil |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Common Sense by Thomas Paine: secure her from invaders.
I challenge the warmest advocate for reconciliation, to shew,
a single advantage that this continent can reap, by being connected
with Great Britain. I repeat the challenge, not a single advantage
is derived. Our corn will fetch its price in any market in Europe,
and our imported goods must be paid for, buy them where we will.
But the injuries and disadvantages we sustain by that connection,
are without number; and our duty to mankind at large,
as well as to ourselves, instruct us to renounce the alliance:
Because, any submission to, or dependence on Great Britain,
tends directly to involve this continent in European wars and quarrels;
Common Sense |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Love Songs by Sara Teasdale: The fading leaves are glad to die,
The wind goes shivering with cold
Where the brown reeds are dry.
Our love is dying like the grass,
And we who kissed grow coldly kind,
Half glad to see our old love pass
Like leaves along the wind.
Spring Rain
I thought I had forgotten,
But it all came back again
To-night with the first spring thunder
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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 Shakespeare's Sonnets by William Shakespeare: Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.
For where is she so fair whose unear'd womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb,
Of his self-love to stop posterity?
Thou art thy mother's glass and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime;
So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,
Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.
But if thou live, remember'd not to be,
Die single and thine image dies with thee.
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