| 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: century of readers--and spirit itself will stink.
Every one being allowed to learn to read, ruineth in the long run not only
writing but also thinking.
Once spirit was God, then it became man, and now it even becometh populace.
He that writeth in blood and proverbs doth not want to be read, but learnt
by heart.
In the mountains the shortest way is from peak to peak, but for that route
thou must have long legs. Proverbs should be peaks, and those spoken to
should be big and tall.
The atmosphere rare and pure, danger near and the spirit full of a joyful
wickedness: thus are things well matched.
Thus Spake Zarathustra |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: officers to make them sensible what the occasion required. But they
not minding what he said, but slighting him as a hare-brained fellow,
(as indeed he was not yet of any repute sufficient to give credit to
a proposal of such importance,) he charged with his own citizens, and
at the first encounter disordered, and soon after put the troops to
flight with great slaughter. Then, to encourage the king's army
further, to bring them all upon the enemy while he was in confusion,
he quitted his horse, and fighting with extreme difficulty in his
heavy horseman's dress, in rough uneven ground, full of watercourses
and hollows, had both his thighs struck through with a thonged
javelin. It was thrown with great force, so that the head came out
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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 The Mucker by Edgar Rice Burroughs: thing which had but a moment before been a man, pulsing
with life and vigor, roll helplessly aside--a harmless and
inanimate lump of clay.
Billy Byrne leaped to his feet, shaking himself as a great
mastiff might whose coat had been ruffled in a fight.
"Come!" he whispered. "We gotta beat it now for sure.
That guy's shot'll lead 'em right down to us," and once more
they took up their flight down toward the valley, along an
unknown trail through the darkness of the night.
For the most part they moved in silence, Billy holding the
girl's arm or hand to steady her over the rough and dangerous
The Mucker |
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 Macbeth by William Shakespeare: That my keene Knife see not the Wound it makes,
Nor Heauen peepe through the Blanket of the darke,
To cry, hold, hold.
Enter Macbeth.
Great Glamys, worthy Cawdor,
Greater then both, by the all-haile hereafter,
Thy Letters haue transported me beyond
This ignorant present, and I feele now
The future in the instant
Macb. My dearest Loue,
Duncan comes here to Night
Macbeth |
