| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson: "I called it noble, Alan," said I.
"And you little better than a common Whig!" cries Alan. "But
when it came to Colin Roy, the black Campbell blood in him ran
wild. He sat gnashing his teeth at the wine table. What! should
a Stewart get a bite of bread, and him not be able to prevent it?
Ah! Red Fox, if ever I hold you at a gun's end, the Lord have
pity upon ye!" (Alan stopped to swallow down his anger.) "Well,
David, what does he do? He declares all the farms to let. And,
thinks he, in his black heart, 'I'll soon get other tenants
that'll overbid these Stewarts, and Maccolls, and Macrobs' (for
these are all names in my clan, David); 'and then,' thinks he,
Kidnapped |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Virginian by Owen Wister: time than a poor one." And so forth. Their wit was not extreme,
yet I should like Dr. MacBride to have heard it. One fellow put
his natural soul pretty well into words, "If I happened to learn
what they had predestinated me to do, I'd do the other thing,
just to show 'em!"
And Trampas? And the Virginian? They were out of it. The
Virginian had gone straight to his new abode. Trampas lay in his
bed, not asleep, and sullen as ever.
"He ain't got religion this trip," said Scipio to me.
"Did his new foreman get it?" I asked.
"Huh! It would spoil him. You keep around that's all. Keep
The Virginian |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift: exchange of armour, as a lasting mark of hospitality between them.
Virgil consented (for the goddess Diffidence came unseen, and cast
a mist before his eyes), though his was of gold and cost a hundred
beeves, the other's but of rusty iron. However, this glittering
armour became the Modern yet worsen than his own. Then they agreed
to exchange horses; but, when it came to the trial, Dryden was
afraid and utterly unable to mount. . . ALTER HIATUS
. . . . IN MS.
Lucan appeared upon a fiery horse of admirable shape, but
headstrong, bearing the rider where he list over the field; he made
a mighty slaughter among the enemy's horse; which destruction to
|
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 Herbert West: Reanimator by H. P. Lovecraft: in elaborate daydreams of revenge, triumph, and final magnanimous
forgiveness.
And then had come the scourge, grinning and lethal,
from the nightmare caverns of Tartarus. West and I had graduated
about the time of its beginning, but had remained for additional
work at the summer school, so that we were in Arkham when it broke
with full daemoniac fury upon the town. Though not as yet licenced
physicians, we now had our degrees, and were pressed frantically
into public service as the numbers of the stricken grew. The situation
was almost past management, and deaths ensued too frequently for
the local undertakers fully to handle. Burials without embalming
Herbert West: Reanimator |
