| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Herbert West: Reanimator by H. P. Lovecraft: So taking the solitary acetylene lamp into the adjacent laboratory,
we left our silent guest on the slab in the dark, and bent every
energy to the mixing of a new solution; the weighing and measuring
supervised by West with an almost fanatical care.
The awful
event was very sudden, and wholly unexpected. I was pouring something
from one test-tube to another, and West was busy over the alcohol
blast-lamp which had to answer for a Bunsen burner in this gasless
edifice, when from the pitch-black room we had left there burst
the most appalling and daemoniac succession of cries that either
of us had ever heard. Not more unutterable could have been the
Herbert West: Reanimator |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Several Works by Edgar Allan Poe: the right and left, in the middle of each wall, a tall and narrow
Gothic window looked out upon a closed corridor which pursued the
windings of the suite. These windows were of stained glass whose
colour varied in accordance with the prevailing hue of the
decorations of the chamber into which it opened. That at the
eastern extremity was hung, for example in blue--and vividly blue
were its windows. The second chamber was purple in its ornaments
and tapestries, and here the panes were purple. The third was
green throughout, and so were the casements. The fourth was
furnished and lighted with orange--the fifth with white--the sixth
with violet. The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black
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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 Eve and David by Honore de Balzac: man of remarkable good looks, though they could scarcely equal yours.
. . . Baron Goertz discerned intelligence in the young man (just as I
see poetry on your brow); he took him into his traveling carriage, as
I shall take you very shortly; and of a boy condemned to spend his
days in burnishing spoons and forks and making trinkets in some little
town like Angouleme, he made a favorite, as you shall be mine.
"Arrived at Stockholm, he installed his secretary and overwhelmed him
with work. The young man spent his nights in writing, and, like all
great workers, he contracted a bad habit, a trick--he took to chewing
paper. The late M. de Malesherbes use to rap people over the knuckles;
and he did this once, by the by, to somebody or other whose suit
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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 Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: late to be included in the present skin-deep reconciliation.
"Kirstie," said Archie one day, "what is this you have against your
family?"
"I dinna complean," said Kirstie, with a flush. "I say naething."
"I see you do not - not even good-day to your own nephew," said he.
"I hae naething to be ashamed of," said she. "I can say the Lord's
prayer with a good grace. If Hob was ill, or in preeson or poverty, I
would see to him blithely. But for curtchying and complimenting and
colloguing, thank ye kindly!"
Archie had a bit of a smile: he leaned back in his chair. "I think you
and Mrs. Robert are not very good friends," says he slyly, "when you
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