| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Shadow out of Time by H. P. Lovecraft: included vivid travels over the mighty jungle roads, sojourns
in strange cities, and explorations of some of the vast, dark,
windowless ruins from which the Great Race shrank in curious fear.
There were also long sea voyages in enormous, many-decked boats
of incredible swiftness, and trips over wild regions in closed
projectile-like airships lifted and moved by electrical repulsion.
Beyond the wide, warm ocean were other cities of the Great Race,
and on one far continent I saw the crude villages of the black-snouted,
winged creatures who would evolve as a dominant stock after the
Great Race had sent its foremost minds into the future to escape
the creeping horror. Flatness and exuberant green life were always
Shadow out of Time |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: expression it was impossible to misinterpret; pain, sadness, and
regret, mingled with hope, were plainly on all those faces. No one in
Montegnac or its neighborhood was ignorant that Monsieur Roubaud had
gone to Paris to bring the best physician science afforded, or that
the benefactress of the whole district was in the last stages of a
fatal illness. In all the markets through a circumference of thirty
miles the peasants asked those of Montegnac,--
"How is your good woman now?"
The great vision of death hovered over the land, and dominated that
rural picture. Afar, in the fields, more than one reaper sharpening
his scythe, more than one young girl, her arms resting on her fork,
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Eve and David by Honore de Balzac: hang upon a neat pair of shoes, a pair of open-worked gray silk
stockings (mind you, remember them), and a new hat? I shall give
out that I am sick and ill, and take to my bed, like Duvicquet, to
save the trouble of replying to the pressing invitations of my
fellow-townsmen. My fellow-townsmen, dear boy, have treated me to
a fine serenade. MY FELLOW-TOWNSMEN, forsooth! I begin to wonder
how many fools go to make up that word, since I learned that two
or three of my old schoolfellows worked up the capital of the
Angoumois to this pitch of enthusiasm.
"If you could contrive to slip a few lines as to my reception in
among the news items, I should be several inches taller for it
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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 Finished by H. Rider Haggard: lo! it rested on the head of a dog which went on licking it.
A dog! What dog? Now I remembered; one that I had found on the
field of Isandhlwana. Then I must be still alive. The thought
made me cry, for I could feel the tears run down my cheeks, not
with joy but with sorrow. I did not wish to go on living. Life
was too full of struggle and of bloodshed and bereavement and
fear and all horrible things. I was prepared to exchange my part
in it just for rest, for the blessing of deep, unending sleep in
which no more dreams could come, no more cups of joy could be
held to thirsting lips, only to be snatched away.
I heard something shuffling towards me at which the dog growled,
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