| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: caused by a stone which a child throws in, or star-shaped like a pane
of glass cracked by a blow; but everywhere very deep, and as close
together as the leaves of a closed book. We often see more hideous old
men; but what contributed more than aught else to give to the spectre
that rose before us the aspect of an artificial creation was the red
and white paint with which he glistened. The eyebrows shone in the
light with a lustre which disclosed a very well executed bit of
painting. Luckily for the eye, saddened by such a mass of ruins, his
corpse-like skull was concealed beneath a light wig, with innumerable
curls which indicated extraordinary pretensions to elegance. Indeed,
the feminine coquettishness of this fantastic apparition was
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Life in the Iron-Mills by Rebecca Davis: vice, his starved infancy; to remember the heavy years he has
groped through as boy and man,--the slow, heavy years of
constant, hot work. So long ago he began, that he thinks
sometimes he has worked there for ages. There is no hope that
it will ever end. Think that God put into this man's soul a
fierce thirst for beauty,--to know it, to create it; to
be--something, he knows not what,--other than he is. There are
moments when a passing cloud, the sun glinting on the purple
thistles, a kindly smile, a child's face, will rouse him to a
passion of pain,--when his nature starts up with a mad cry of
rage against God, man, whoever it is that has forced this vile,
Life in the Iron-Mills |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Of The Nature of Things by Lucretius: In glowing furnaces the thunderbolt.
For in a two-fold manner is that wind
Enkindled all: it trembles into heat
Both by its own velocity and by
Repeated touch of fire. Thereafter, when
The energy of wind is heated through
And the fierce impulse of the fire hath sped
Deeply within, O then the thunderbolt,
Now ripened, so to say, doth suddenly
Splinter the cloud, and the aroused flash
Leaps onward, lumining with forky light
Of The Nature of Things |
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 Shadow out of Time by H. P. Lovecraft: funds from the college, and other things either untrue or irrelevant.
Naturally, no one paid the least attention to my new wishes -
not even my son, whose concern for my health was obvious.
The
next day I was up and around the camp, but took no part in the
excavations. Seeing that I could not stop the work, I decided
to return home as soon as possible for the sake of my nerves,
and made my son promise to fly me in the plane to Perth - a thousand
miles to the southwest - as soon as he had surveyed the region
I wished let alone.
If, I reflected, the thing I had seen was
Shadow out of Time |
