| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Herbert West: Reanimator by H. P. Lovecraft: the police. In the small hours of the morning a body of silent
men had entered the grounds, and their leader had aroused the
attendants. He was a menacing military figure who talked without
moving his lips and whose voice seemed almost ventriloquially
connected with an immense black case he carried. His expressionless
face was handsome to the point of radiant beauty, but had shocked
the superintendent when the hall light fell on it -- for it was
a wax face with eyes of painted glass. Some nameless accident
had befallen this man. A larger man guided his steps; a repellent
hulk whose bluish face seemed half eaten away by some unknown
malady. The speaker had asked for the custody of the cannibal
Herbert West: Reanimator |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Anthem by Ayn Rand: as if there were no power left in us save laughter.
Then we took our glass box, and we
went on into the forest. We went on,
cutting through the branches, and it was
as if we were swimming through a sea of leaves,
with the bushes as waves rising and falling
and rising around us, and flinging their
green sprays high to the treetops.
The trees parted before us, calling us forward.
The forest seemed to welcome us. We went on,
without thought, without care, with nothing
Anthem |
| 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: improved by human effort. There is also an adaptation of persons to times
and countries, but this is very far from being the fulfilment of their
higher natures. The man of the seventeenth century is unfitted for the
eighteenth, and the man of the eighteenth for the nineteenth, and most of
us would be out of place in the world of a hundred years hence. But all
higher minds are much more akin than they are different: genius is of all
ages, and there is perhaps more uniformity in excellence than in
mediocrity. The sublimer intelligences of mankind--Plato, Dante, Sir
Thomas More--meet in a higher sphere above the ordinary ways of men; they
understand one another from afar, notwithstanding the interval which
separates them. They are 'the spectators of all time and of all
|
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 Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: intelligent and mobile nation, the general cause should be pointed out
which bleaches and discolors, tints with blue or brown individuals in
more or less degree.
By dint of taking interest in everything, the Parisian ends by being
interested in nothing. No emotion dominating his face, which friction
has rubbed away, it turns gray like the faces of those houses upon
which all kinds of dust and smoke have blown. In effect, the Parisian,
with his indifference on the day for what the morrow will bring forth,
lives like a child, whatever may be his age. He grumbles at
everything, consoles himself for everything, jests at everything,
forgets, desires, and tastes everything, seizes all with passion,
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
