| 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: ceased to interest him if it happened to be printed; his sole
pleasure was in the reading, compiling, and rearranging what he
called his "Memoirs to prove the Existence of the Devil," and
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
The Great God Pan |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: artist's privilege and dressed as they pleased, and curious it was to
see the provincial dowdiness of the pair. In their threadbare clothes
they looked like the supernumeraries that represent rank and fashion
at stage weddings in third-rate theatres.
One of the queerest figures in the rooms was M. le Comte de Senonches,
known by the aristocratic name of Jacques, a mighty hunter, lean and
sunburned, a haughty gentleman, about as amiable as a wild boar, as
suspicious as a Venetian, and jealous as a Moor, who lived on terms of
the friendliest and most perfect intimacy with M. du Hautoy, otherwise
Francis, the friend of the house.
Madame de Senonches (Zephirine) was a tall, fine-looking woman, though
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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 Charmides and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde: Like little things of dancing gold.
Sometimes about the painted kiosk
The mimic soldiers strut and stride,
Sometimes the blue-eyed brigands hide
In the bleak tangles of the bosk.
And sometimes, while the old nurse cons
Her book, they steal across the square,
And launch their paper navies where
Huge Triton writhes in greenish bronze.
And now in mimic flight they flee,
And now they rush, a boisterous band -
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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 Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne: At eight in the evening we are not two leagues distant from it. Its
body -dusky, enormous, hillocky - lies spread upon the sea like an
islet. Is it illusion or fear? Its length seems to me a couple of
thousand yards. What can be this cetacean, which neither Cuvier nor
Blumenbach knew anything about? It lies motionless, as if asleep; the
sea seems unable to move it in the least; it is the waves that
undulate upon its sides. The column of water thrown up to a height of
five hundred feet falls in rain with a deafening uproar. And here are
we scudding like lunatics before the wind, to get near to a monster
that a hundred whales a day would not satisfy!
Terror seizes upon me. I refuse to go further. I will cut the
Journey to the Center of the Earth |
