| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from All's Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare: cannot yet find in my heart to repent. Here he comes; I pray you
make us friends; I will pursue the amity
[Enter PAROLLES.]
PAROLLES.
[To BERTRAM.] These things shall be done, sir.
LAFEU.
Pray you, sir, who's his tailor?
PAROLLES.
Sir!
LAFEU.
O, I know him well, I, sir; he, sir, is a good workman, a
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Main Street by Sinclair Lewis: Carol saw, though she did not admit, that Olaf was not
only more beautiful than her own dark child, but more gracious.
Olaf was a Norse chieftain: straight, sunny-haired, large-
limbed, resplendently amiable to his subjects. Hugh was a
vulgarian; a bustling business man. It was Hugh that bounced
and said "Let's play"; Olaf that opened luminous blue eyes
and agreed "All right," in condescending gentleness. If Hugh
batted him--and Hugh did bat him--Olaf was unafraid but
shocked. In magnificent solitude he marched toward the
house, while Hugh bewailed his sin and the overclouding of
august favor.
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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 Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche: we--accept precisely this wild motleyness, this medley of the
most delicate, the most coarse, and the most artificial, with a
secret confidence and cordiality; we enjoy it as a refinement of
art reserved expressly for us, and allow ourselves to be as
little disturbed by the repulsive fumes and the proximity of the
English populace in which Shakespeare's art and taste lives, as
perhaps on the Chiaja of Naples, where, with all our senses
awake, we go our way, enchanted and voluntarily, in spite of the
drain-odour of the lower quarters of the town. That as men of the
"historical sense" we have our virtues, is not to be disputed:--
we are unpretentious, unselfish, modest, brave, habituated to
Beyond Good and Evil |
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 The Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift: small spot of ground, lying and being upon one of the two tops of
the hill Parnassus; the highest and largest of which had, it seems,
been time out of mind in quiet possession of certain tenants,
called the Ancients; and the other was held by the Moderns. But
these disliking their present station, sent certain ambassadors to
the Ancients, complaining of a great nuisance; how the height of
that part of Parnassus quite spoiled the prospect of theirs,
especially towards the east; and therefore, to avoid a war, offered
them the choice of this alternative, either that the Ancients would
please to remove themselves and their effects down to the lower
summit, which the Moderns would graciously surrender to them, and
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