| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Dracula by Bram Stoker: King George's Road, Great Walworth, and Thomas Snelling,
Peter Farley's Row, Guide Court, Bethnal Green. They are both
in the employment of Harris & Sons, Moving and Shipment Company,
Orange Master's Yard, Soho.
"I shall report to you any matter of interest occurring here,
and shall wire you at once if there is anything of importance.
"Believe me, dear Sir,
"Yours faithfully,
"Patrick Hennessey."
LETTER, MINA HARKER TO LUCY WESTENRA (Unopened by her)
18 September
Dracula |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley: sponges built up of glassy spicules, and rooted in the mud by glass
hairs, in some cases between two and three feet long, as flexible
and graceful as tresses of snow-white silk.
Look at these, and a hundred kindred forms, and then see how nature
is not only "maxima in minimis" - greatest in her least, but often
"pulcherrima in abditis" - fairest in her most hidden works; and
how the Creative Spirit has lavished, as it were, unspeakable
artistic skill on lowly-organized creature, never till now beheld
by man, and buried, not only in foul mud, but in their own
unsightly heap of living jelly.
But so it was from the beginning; - and this planet was not made
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Master Key by L. Frank Baum: had well-nigh blinded them.
When the Demon announced himself ready to do the boy's bidding, he
frankly replied:
"I am no skilled electrician, as you very well know. My calling you
here was an accident. So I don't know how to command you, nor what to
ask you to do."
"But I must not take advantage of your ignorance," answered the Demon.
"Also, I am quite anxious to utilize this opportunity to show the
world what a powerful element electricity really is. So permit me to
inform you that, having struck the Master Key, you are at liberty to
demand from me three gifts each week for three successive weeks.
The Master Key |
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 Walking by Henry David Thoreau: in secret his own wild title earned in the woods. We have a wild
savage in us, and a savage name is perchance somewhere recorded
as ours. I see that my neighbor, who bears the familiar epithet
William or Edwin, takes it off with his jacket. It does not
adhere to him when asleep or in anger, or aroused by any passion
or inspiration. I seem to hear pronounced by some of his kin at
such a time his original wild name in some jaw-breaking or else
melodious tongue.
Here is this vast, savage, hovering mother of ours, Nature, lying
all around, with such beauty, and such affection for her
children, as the leopard; and yet we are so early weaned from her
Walking |
