| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Essays of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: merest rudiment of a tail. Tails, it seemed, were out of season just
then. But they had their necks for all that; and by their necks
alone they do as much surpass all the other birds of our grey climate
as they fall in quality of song below the blackbird or the lark.
Surely the peacock, with its incomparable parade of glorious colour
and the scannel voice of it issuing forth, as in mockery, from its
painted throat, must, like my landlady's butterflies at Great
Missenden, have been invented by some skilful fabulist for the
consolation and support of homely virtue: or rather, perhaps, by a
fabulist not quite so skilful, who made points for the moment without
having a studious enough eye to the complete effect; for I thought
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft: clumsy mode of fighting.
Three of the Emma's men, including
Capt. Collins and First Mate Green, were killed; and the remaining
eight under Second Mate Johansen proceeded to navigate the captured
yacht, going ahead in their original direction to see if any reason
for their ordering back had existed. The next day, it appears,
they raised and landed on a small island, although none is known
to exist in that part of the ocean; and six of the men somehow
died ashore, though Johansen is queerly reticent about this part
of his story, and speaks only of their falling into a rock chasm.
Later, it seems, he and one companion boarded the yacht and tried
Call of Cthulhu |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The White Moll by Frank L. Packard: guy!"
Were eternities passing? Her eyes were fascinated by the interior
beyond that broken door. It was utterly dark inside there, save
that the ray of a flashlight played now on the table, and a hand
reached out and snatched up a scattered sheaf of banknotes; and
on the outer edge of the ray two shadowy forms struggled and one
went down. Then the flashlight went out She heard the Pug speak:
"Beat it!"
Commotion came now; cries and footsteps from around that corner in
the passage. The Pug grasped her by the shoulders, and rushed her
back into the cellar. She was conscious, it seemed, only in a dazed
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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 Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous by Oscar Wilde: in the Daily Telegraph the incident was hardly mentioned in England.
I gather that the performance was only a qualified success, though
Lugne Poe's triumph as Herod was generally acknowledged. In 1901,
within a year of the author's death, it was produced in Berlin; from
that moment it has held the European stage. It has run for a longer
consecutive period in Germany than any play by any Englishman, not
excepting Shakespeare. Its popularity has extended to all countries
where it is not prohibited. It is performed throughout Europe, Asia
and America. It is played even in Yiddish. This is remarkable in
view of the many dramas by French and German writers who treat of
the same theme. To none of them, however, is Wilde indebted.
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