| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: "The question is an offence, my son," said the hermit. "If you do not
choose to pay till after the funeral, you are in your rights. I will
return in a week's time."
"The funeral!" cried the lawyer, starting up.
"The world moves on," said the old man, as he withdrew, "and the dead
move quickly in Paris!"
When Hulot, who stood looking down, was about to reply, the stalwart
old man had vanished.
"I don't understand one word of all this," said Victorin to himself.
"But at the end of the week I will ask him again about my father, if
we have not yet found him. Where does Madame Nourrisson--yes, that was
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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 Great God Pan by Arthur Machen: friend. He had not been long in Buenos Ayres, and knew scarcely
any one, with the exception of a person who did not bear the
best of characters, and has since left--a Mrs. Vaughan.'"
VIII
THE FRAGMENTS
[Amongst the papers of the well-known physician, Dr.
Robert Matheson, of Ashley Street, Piccadilly, who died
suddenly, of apoplectic seizure, at the beginning of 1892, a
leaf of manuscript paper was found, covered with pencil
jottings. These notes were in Latin, much abbreviated, and had
evidently been made in great haste. The MS. was only
The Great God Pan |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Sophist by Plato: because in continuing the hunt after the Sophist we have to examine the
nature of discourse, and there could be no discourse if there were no
communion. For the Sophist, although he can no longer deny the existence
of not-being, may still affirm that not-being cannot enter into discourse,
and as he was arguing before that there could be no such thing as
falsehood, because there was no such thing as not-being, he may continue to
argue that there is no such thing as the art of image-making and
phantastic, because not-being has no place in language. Hence arises the
necessity of examining speech, opinion, and imagination.
And first concerning speech; let us ask the same question about words which
we have already answered about the kinds of being and the letters of the
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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 Where There's A Will by Mary Roberts Rinehart: "I'm sure I beg your pardon!" he said. "The fact is, I was
expecting somebody else, and in the firelight--"
"You surprised me, that's all," said Mr. Pierce. "Under the
circumstances, I'm glad I'm not the other chap."
"You may be," assured Mr. Sam grimly. "You're not unlike him, by
the way. A little taller and heavier, but--"
Now it's all very well for Mr. Sam to say I originated the idea
and all that, but as truly as I am writing this, as I watched his
face I saw the same thought come into it. He looked Mr. Pierce
up and down, and then he stared into the fire and puckered his
mouth to whistle, but he didn't. And finally he glanced at me,
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