| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs: to dawn upon her the realization that she had, possibly,
learned something else which she had never really known
before--love. She wondered and then she smiled.
And still smiling, she pushed Tarzan gently away; and
looking at him with a half-smiling, half-quizzical expression
that made her face wholly entrancing, she pointed to the fruit
upon the ground, and seated herself upon the edge of the
earthen drum of the anthropoids, for hunger was asserting itself.
Tarzan quickly gathered up the fruit, and, bringing it, laid
it at her feet; and then he, too, sat upon the drum beside her,
and with his knife opened and prepared the various fruits for
Tarzan of the Apes |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ursula by Honore de Balzac: Sebastien-Marie Goupil, notary of Nemours and husband of Mademoiselle
Massin. The two beings do not know each other. They are no longer even
alike. Look at me!"
Thus adjured Monsieur Bongrand took notice of Goupil's clothes. The
new notary wore a white cravat, a shirt of dazzling whiteness adorned
with ruby buttons, a waistcoat of red velvet, with trousers and coat
of handsome black broad-cloth, made in Paris. His boots were neat; his
hair, carefully combed, was perfumed--in short he was metamorphosed.
"The fact is you are another man," said Bongrand.
"Morally as well as physically. Virtue comes with practice--a
practice; besides, money is the source of cleanliness--"
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft: the ruins of Macchu Picchu in the Andes, or the primal foundation
walls of Kish as dug up by the Oxford Field Museum Expedition
in 1929; and both Danforth and I obtained that occasional impression
of separate Cyclopean blocks which Lake had attributed to his
flight-companion Carroll. How to account for such things in this
place was frankly beyond me, and I felt queerly humbled as a geologist.
Igneous formations often have strange regularities - like the
famous Giants’ Causeway in Ireland - but this stupendous range,
despite Lake’s original suspicion of smoking cones, was above
all else nonvolcanic in evident structure.
The curious cave
At the Mountains of Madness |
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 Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: Poor little fellow! one only consolation have we; his friends mourn and weep,
but he is at rest. The pang is over, his sufferings are at an end for ever.
A sod covers his gentle form, and he knows no pain. He can no longer be
a subject for pity; we must reserve that for his miserable survivors."
Clerval spoke thus as we hurried through the streets; the words impressed
themselves on my mind and I remembered them afterwards in solitude.
But now, as soon as the horses arrived, I hurried into a cabriolet,
and bade farewell to my friend.
My journey was very melancholy. At first I wished to hurry on,
for I longed to console and sympathise with my loved and sorrowing friends;
but when I drew near my native town, I slackened my progress.
Frankenstein |
