| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen: engaged in this pursuit the evening seemed to fly and the night
appeared too short.
On one particular evening, an ugly December night,
black with fog, and raw with frost, Clarke hurried over his
dinner, and scarcely deigned to observe his customary ritual of
taking up the paper and laying it down again. He paced two or
three times up and down the room, and opened the bureau, stood
still a moment, and sat down. He leant back, absorbed in one
of those dreams to which he was subject, and at length drew out
his book, and opened it at the last entry. There were three or
four pages densely covered with Clarke's round, set penmanship,
The Great God Pan |
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: tropics, the beauty of the scenery, the almost puerile innocence of a
love that seemed so sacred had done their work on Veronique. She was
led by the sweet and noble achievement of its author to the worship of
the Ideal, that fatal human religion! She dreamed of a lover like
Paul. Her thoughts caressed the voluptuous image of that balmy isle.
Childlike, she named an island in the Vienne, below Limoges and nearly
opposite to the Faubourg Saint-Martial, the Ile de France. Her mind
lived there in the world of fancy all young girls construct,--a world
they enrich with their own perfections. She spent long hours at her
window, looking at the artisans or the mechanics who passed it, the
only men whom the modest position of her parents allowed her to think
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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 Myths and Myth-Makers by John Fiske: he retains the old characteristics of Vritra, Ahi, Typhon, and
Echidna. As the black dog which appears behind the stove in
Dr. Faust's study, he is the classic hell-hound Kerberos, the
Vedic Carvara. From the sylvan deity Pan he gets his goat-like
body, his horns and cloven hoofs. Like the wind-god Orpheus,
to whose music the trees bent their heads to listen, he is an
unrivalled player on the bagpipes. Like those other wind-gods
the psychopomp Hermes and the wild huntsman Odin, he is the
prince of the powers of the air: his flight through the
midnight sky, attended by his troop of witches mounted on
their brooms, which sometimes break the boughs and sweep the
Myths and Myth-Makers |
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 Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death by Patrick Henry: implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and
Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced
additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded;
and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne!
In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and
reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free--
if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which
we have been so long contending--if we mean not basely to abandon the noble
struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged
ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest
shall be obtained--we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight!
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