| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: challenged him to the palaestra; and he wrestled and closed with me several
times when there was no one present; I fancied that I might succeed in this
manner. Not a bit; I made no way with him. Lastly, as I had failed
hitherto, I thought that I must take stronger measures and attack him
boldly, and, as I had begun, not give him up, but see how matters stood
between him and me. So I invited him to sup with me, just as if he were a
fair youth, and I a designing lover. He was not easily persuaded to come;
he did, however, after a while accept the invitation, and when he came the
first time, he wanted to go away at once as soon as supper was over, and I
had not the face to detain him. The second time, still in pursuance of my
design, after we had supped, I went on conversing far into the night, and
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sanitary and Social Lectures by Charles Kingsley: Therefore, you have no lien on them, not even that of gratitude;
you cannot say to a man: "I have prevented you having typhus,
therefore you must attend my chapel." No! Sanitary Reform makes
no proselytes. It cannot be used as a religious engine. It is
too simply human, too little a respecter of persons, too like to
the works of Him who causes His sun to shine on the evil and the
good, and His rain to fall on the just and on the unjust, and is
good to the unthankful and to the evil, to find much favour in the
eyes of a generation which will compass sea and land to make one
proselyte.
Yes. Too like the works of our Father in heaven, as indeed all
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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 Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau by Honore de Balzac: Europe, while the eager hand was running over the paper, the poor
perfumer felt something that was like a hot iron in his stomach. He
assumed the ingratiating manner which for ten years past the banker
had seen all men put on when they wanted to get the better of him for
their own purposes, and which gave him at once the advantage over
them. Francois Keller accordingly darted at Cesar a look which shot
through his head,--a Napoleonic look. This imitation of Napoleon's
glance was a silly satire, then popular with certain parvenus who had
never seen so much as the base coin of their emperor. This glance fell
upon Birotteau, a devotee of the Right, a partisan of the government,
--himself an element of monarchical election,--like the stamp of a
Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau |
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 At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft: afternoon was struggling to shine; and when, for a moment, that
sun encountered a denser obstruction and plunged the scene into
temporary shadow, the effect was subtly menacing in a way I can
never hope to depict. Even the faint howling and piping of the
unfelt wind in the great mountain passes behind us took on a wilder
note of purposeful malignity. The last stage of our descent to
the town was unusually steep and abrupt, and a rock outcropping
at the edge where the grade changed led us to think that an artificial
terrace had once existed there. Under the glaciation, we believed,
there must be a flight of steps or its equivalent.
When at last
At the Mountains of Madness |
