| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Shadow out of Time by H. P. Lovecraft: have had a discoverer's enthusiasm.
The next forenoon I told
the others about my find, and Dyer, Freeborn, Boyle, my son, and
I set out to view the anomalous block. Failure, however, confronted
us. I had formed no clear idea of the stone's location, and a
late ind had wholly altered the hillocks of shifting sand.
VI
I come now to the crucial and most difficult part of my narrative
- all the more difficult because I cannot be quite certain of
its reality. At times I feel uncomfortably sure that I was not
dreaming or deluded; and it is this feelingin view of the stupendous
Shadow out of Time |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates by Howard Pyle: century, when it was possible for a pirate like Capt. Teach,
known as Blackbeard, to exist, and for the governor and the
secretary of the province in which he lived perhaps to share his
plunder, and to shelter and to protect him against the law.
At that time the American colonists were in general a rough,
rugged people, knowing nothing of the finer things of life. They
lived mostly in little settlements, separated by long distances
from one another, so that they could neither make nor enforce
laws to protect themselves. Each man or little group of men had
to depend upon his or their own strength to keep what belonged to
them, and to prevent fierce men or groups of men from seizing
Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: evocation of the sunset, the saint's figure emerged pale and
swooning from the dusk, and the warm light gave a sensual tinge
to her ecstasy. The flesh seemed to glow and heave, the eyelids
to tremble; Wyant stood fascinated by the accidental
collaboration of light and color.
Suddenly he noticed that something white had fluttered to the
ground at his feet. He stooped and picked up a small thin sheet
of note-paper, folded and sealed like an old-fashioned letter,
and bearing the superscription:--
To the Count Ottaviano Celsi.
Wyant stared at this mysterious document. Where had it come
|
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 Passionate Pilgrim by William Shakespeare: A brittle glass that's broken presently:
A doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower,
Lost, vaded, broken, dead within an hour.
And as goods lost are seld or never found,
As vaded gloss no rubbing will refresh,
As flowers dead lie wither'd on the ground,
As broken glass no cement can redress,
So beauty blemish'd once's for ever lost,
In spite of physic, painting, pain and cost.
XIV.
Good night, good rest. Ah, neither be my share:
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