| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: the blundering principles of elective rights, by the unsoundness of
the ministerial constitution.
"Look at the elective Chamber; you will find no deputies of thirty;
the youth of Richelieu and of Mazarin, of Turenne and of Colbert, of
Pitt and of Saint-Just, of Napoleon and of Prince Metternich, would
find no admission there; Burke, Sheridan, or Fox could not win seats.
Even if political majority had been fixed at one-and-twenty, and
eligibility had been relieved of every disabling qualification, the
Departments would have returned the very same members, men devoid of
political talent, unable to speak without murdering French grammar,
and among whom, in ten years, scarcely one statesman has been found.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Turn of the Screw by Henry James: yet the effect of this better view was, strangely, only to show me
how intense the former had been. He remained but a few seconds--
long enough to convince me he also saw and recognized; but it was
as if I had been looking at him for years and had known him always.
Something, however, happened this time that had not happened before;
his stare into my face, through the glass and across the room,
was as deep and hard as then, but it quitted me for a moment
during which I could still watch it, see it fix successively
several other things. On the spot there came to me the added
shock of a certitude that it was not for me he had come there.
He had come for someone else.
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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 The Profits of Religion by Upton Sinclair: as it did in Elisha's time. It is the same yesterday, today and
forever. Abundant Supply by the manifestation of the Father
within us, from within outward, is as much a legitimate outcome
of the Christ life or spiritual understanding as is bodily
healing..... "Know that I am God--all of God, Good, all of Good.
I am Life. I am Health. I am Supply. I am the Substance."
And here is W. W. Atkinson of Chicago, author of a work called
"Mind Power". Would you like to be an Impressive Personality? Mr.
Atkinson will tell you exactly how to do it; he will give you the
secret of the Magnetic Handclasp, of the Intense,
Straight-in-the-eye Look; he will tell you what to say, he will
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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 Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft: me see with terrible vividness the damp Cyclopean city of slimy
green stone - whose geometry, he oddly said, was all wrong - and
hear with frightened expectancy the ceaseless, half-mental calling
from underground: "Cthulhu fhtagn", "Cthulhu fhtagn."
These
words had formed part of that dread ritual which told of dead
Cthulhu's dream-vigil in his stone vault at R'lyeh, and I felt
deeply moved despite my rational beliefs. Wilcox, I was sure,
had heard of the cult in some casual way, and had soon forgotten
it amidst the mass of his equally weird reading and imagining.
Later, by virtue of its sheer impressiveness, it had found subconscious
Call of Cthulhu |
