| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry: and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they
are wisest. They are the magi.
End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of THE GIFT OF THE MAGI.
The Gift of the Magi |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H. P. Lovecraft: other needs of their polypous and amorphous masters. Now he saw
where such ambiguous creatures came from, and shuddered at the
thought that Leng must be known to these formless abominations
from the moon.
But the Shantak flew on past the fires and the
stone huts and the less than human dancers, and soared over sterile
hills of grey granite and dim wastes of rock and ice and snow.
Day came, and the phosphorescence of low clouds gave place to
the misty twilight of that northern world, and still the vile
bird winged meaningly through the cold and silence. At times the
slant-eyed man talked with his steed in a hateful and guttural
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald: autumnal twilight, and Amory at quarter-back, exhorting in wild
despair, making impossible tackles, calling signals in a voice
that had diminished to a hoarse, furious whisper, yet found time
to revel in the blood-stained bandage around his head, and the
straining, glorious heroism of plunging, crashing bodies and
aching limbs. For those minutes courage flowed like wine out of
the November dusk, and he was the eternal hero, one with the
sea-rover on the prow of a Norse galley, one with Roland and
Horatius, Sir Nigel and Ted Coy, scraped and stripped into trim
and then flung by his own will into the breach, beating back the
tide, hearing from afar the thunder of cheers ... finally bruised
This Side of Paradise |
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 Droll Stories, V. 1 by Honore de Balzac: of bringing to life that fine handsome young fellow who by lucky
chance had been very badly hanged.
"See how my executioners serve me!" said Louis, laughing.
"Ah!" said La Beaupertuys, "you will not have him hanged again? he is
too handsome."
"The decree does not say that he shall be hanged twice, but he shall
marry the old woman."
Indeed, the good lady went in a great hurry to seek a master leech, a
good bleeder, who lived in the Abbey, and brought him back directly.
He immediately took his lancet, and bled the young man. And as no
blood came out: "Ah!" said he, "it is too late, the transshipment of
Droll Stories, V. 1 |
