| 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: peculiar fashion known as life. That the psychic or intellectual
life might be impaired by the slight deterioration of sensitive
brain-cells which even a short period of death would be apt to
cause, West fully realised. It had at first been his hope to find
a reagent which would restore vitality before the actual advent
of death, and only repeated failures on animals had shewn him
that the natural and artificial life-motions were incompatible.
He then sought extreme freshness in his specimens, injecting his
solutions into the blood immediately after the extinction of life.
It was this circumstance which made the professors so carelessly
sceptical, for they felt that true death had not occurred in any
Herbert West: Reanimator |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Duchess of Padua by Oscar Wilde: All dear recorded memories, farewell,
Farewell all love! Could I with bloody hands
Fondle and paddle with her innocent hands?
Could I with lips fresh from this butchery
Play with her lips? Could I with murderous eyes
Look in those violet eyes, whose purity
Would strike men blind, and make each eyeball reel
In night perpetual? No, murder has set
A barrier between us far too high
For us to kiss across it.
DUCHESS
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy: d'Urberville lineaments, furrowed with incarnate
memories representing in hieroglyphic the centuries of
her family's and England's history. But she screwed
herself up to the work in hand, since she could not get
out of it, and answered--
"I came to see your mother, sir."
"I am afraid you cannot see her--she is an invalid,"
replied thepresent representative of the spurious
house; for this was Mr Alec, the only son of the lately
deceased gentleman. "Cannot I answer your purpose?
What is the business you wish to see her about?"
Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman |
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 Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri: By reason of two flamelets we saw placed there,
And from afar another answer them,
So far, that hardly could the eye attain it.
And, to the sea of all discernment turned,
I said: "What sayeth this, and what respondeth
That other fire? and who are they that made it?"
And he to me: "Across the turbid waves
What is expected thou canst now discern,
If reek of the morass conceal it not."
Cord never shot an arrow from itself
That sped away athwart the air so swift,
The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) |
