| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: mutton, tripe, sausages, a chicken fricassee, sweet cider, a fruit
tart and some preserved prunes; then to all this the good woman added
polite remarks about Madame, who appeared to be in better health,
Mademoiselle, who had grown to be "superb," and Paul, who had become
singularly sturdy; she spoke also of their deceased grandparents, whom
the Liebards had known, for they had been in the service of the family
for several generations.
Like its owners, the farm had an ancient appearance. The beams of the
ceiling were mouldy, the walls black with smoke and the windows grey
with dust. The oak sideboard was filled with all sorts of utensils,
plates, pitchers, tin bowls, wolf-traps. The children laughed when
A Simple Soul |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne: "Not at present; because the solar rays, beating directly
upon our thermometer, would give, on the contrary, a very high
temperature. But, when we arrive in the moon, during its
fifteen days of night at either face, we shall have leisure to
make the experiment, for our satellite lies in a vacuum."
"What do you mean by a vacuum?" asked Michel. "Is it perfectly such?"
"It is absolutely void of air."
"And is the air replaced by nothing whatever?"
"By the ether only," replied Barbicane.
"And pray what is the ether?"
"The ether, my friend, is an agglomeration of imponderable
From the Earth to the Moon |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Horse's Tale by Mark Twain: army, and there's not a gorge, nor a pass, nor a valley, nor a
fort, nor a trading post, nor a buffalo-range in the whole sweep of
the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains that we don't know as well
as we know the bugle-calls. He is Chief of Scouts to the Army of
the Frontier, and it makes us very important. In such a position
as I hold in the military service one needs to be of good family
and possess an education much above the common to be worthy of the
place. I am the best-educated horse outside of the hippodrome,
everybody says, and the best-mannered. It may be so, it is not for
me to say; modesty is the best policy, I think. Buffalo Bill
taught me the most of what I know, my mother taught me much, and I
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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 The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H. P. Lovecraft: it, but that austere patriarch insisted that the path of duty
lay with the tribe and the army. So Carter set out alone over
the golden fields that stretched mysterious beside a willow-fringed
river, and the cats went back into the wood.
Well did the traveller
know those garden lands that lie betwixt the wood of the Cerenerian
Sea, and blithely did he follow the singing river Oukianos that
marked his course. The sun rose higher over gentle slopes of grove
and lawn, and heightened the colours of the thousand flowers that
starred each knoll and dangle. A blessed haze lies upon all this
region, wherein is held a little more of the sunlight than other
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath |
