| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: [24] Or, more lit. "it would not do for the People to hear," etc.
[25] Or, "the butt of comedy."
What, then, I venture to assert is, that the People of Athens has no
difficulty in recognising which of its citizens are of the better sort
and which the opposite.[26] And so recognising those who are
serviceable and advantageous[27] to itself, even though they be base,
the People loves them; but the good folk they are disposed rather to
hate. This virtue of theirs, the People holds, is not engrained in
their nature for any good to itself, but rather for its injury. In
direct opposition to this, there are some persons who, being[28] born
of the People, are yet by natural instinct not commoners. For my part
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: I threw my arms round the trunk of a very wet fir tree,
every branch of which I remembered, for had I not climbed it,
and fallen from it, and torn and bruised myself on it uncountable
numbers of times? and I gave it such a hearty kiss that my nose
and chin were smudged into one green stain, and still I did not care.
Far from caring, it filled me with a reckless, Backfisch pleasure
in being dirty, a delicious feeling that I had not had for years.
Alice in Wonderland, after she had drunk the contents of
the magic bottle, could not have grown smaller more suddenly
than I grew younger the moment I passed through that magic door.
Bad habits cling to us, however, with such persistency that I
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from My Aunt Margaret's Mirror by Walter Scott: confusion, the clergyman, and some elder and graver persons,
labouring apparently to keep the peace, while the hotter spirits
on both sides brandished their weapons. But now, the period of
the brief space during which the soothsayer, as he pretended, was
permitted to exhibit his art, was arrived. The fumes again mixed
together, and dissolved gradually from observation; the vaults
and columns of the church rolled asunder, and disappeared; and
the front of the mirror reflected nothing save the blazing
torches and the melancholy apparatus placed on the altar or table
before it.
The doctor led the ladies, who greatly required his support, into
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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 The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H. P. Lovecraft: The
number of malodorous moonbeasts about that greenish fire was very
great, and Carter saw that he could do nothing now to save his
former allies. Of how the ghouls had been captured he could not
guess; but fancied that the grey toadlike blasphemies had heard
them inquire in Dylath-Leen concerning the way to Sarkomand and
had not wished them to approach so closely the hateful plateau
of Leng and the High-Priest Not To Be Described. For a moment
he pondered on what he ought to do, and recalled how near he was
to the gate of the ghouls' black kingdom. Clearly it was wisest
to creep east to the plaza of twin lions and descend at once to
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath |
