| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Little Rivers by Henry van Dyke: To break the record, or my line:
Only an idle little stream,
Whose amber waters softly gleam,
Where I may wade, through woodland shade,
And cast the fly, and loaf, and dream:
Only a trout or two, to dart
From foaming pools, and try my art:
No more I'm wishing--old-fashioned fishing,
And just a day on Nature's heart.
1894.
LITTLE RIVERS
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Brother of Daphne by Dornford Yates: great evidence. Anxious to run no unnecessary risk, I avoided
her when possible, and when I did find myself in her proximity, I
at once indulged in some of my more extravagant behaviour.
"Where's your brother?" I heard a worker say.
"Brother!" said Daphne bitterly. "Coward! And I really thought
we should have him this time. Fled to London before we were up
this morning, thank you. From the amount of food he took with
him, and the way he took it, anyone would have thought he was an
escaped convict. Guilty conscience, I suppose. One hears a good
deal about record flights nowadays, but I'd back my miserable
brother against any aviator. My husband's promised to look in
The Brother of Daphne |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Hated Son by Honore de Balzac: happiness was to work beside her mother in the tapestried salon, to
pray in the church, to sing her ballads to a lute, to read in secret a
romance of chivalry, to pluck the petals of a flower, discover what
gift her father would make her on the feast of the Blessed Saint-John,
and find out the meaning of speeches repressed before her. Passing
thus from her childish joys through the sixteen years of her girlhood,
the grace of those softly flowing years when she knew no pain was
eclipsed by the brightness of a memory precious though ill-fated. The
joyous peace of her childhood was far less sweet to her than a single
one of the troubles scattered upon the last two years of her
childhood,--years that were rich in treasures now buried forever in
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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 The Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft: that only black Magick can discover, and only the Divell unlock".
Mr. Hoadley disappeared soon after delivering this sermon, but
the text, printed in Springfield, is still extant. Noises in the
hills continued to be reported from year to year, and still form
a puzzle to geologists and physiographers.
Other traditions
tell of foul odours near the hill-crowning circles of stone pillars,
and of rushing airy presences to be heard faintly at certain hours
from stated points at the bottom of the great ravines; while still
others try to explain the Devil's Hop Yard - a bleak, blasted
hillside where no tree, shrub, or grass-blade will grow. Then,
The Dunwich Horror |
