| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: "Yes, it just gripes me, and I can't get to sleep."
Her voice was faint. He knew her dread of doctors' verdicts and he did not
inform her, but he creaked down-stairs, telephoned to Dr. Earl Patten, and
waited, shivering, trying with fuzzy eyes to read a magazine, till he heard
the doctor's car.
The doctor was youngish and professionally breezy. He came in as though it
were sunny noontime. "Well, George, little trouble, eh? How is she now?" he
said busily as, with tremendous and rather irritating cheerfulness, he tossed
his coat on a chair and warmed his hands at a radiator. He took charge of the
house. Babbitt felt ousted and unimportant as he followed the doctor up to
the bedroom, and it was the doctor who chuckled, "Oh, just little
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: word, suffices to blot out years of happiness, and is the more cruel
because it contrasts with the unfailing tenderness of the past: our
nature leads us to suffer more from one discord in our happiness than
pleasure coming in the midst of trouble can bring us joy.
Presently Balthazar appeared to waken; he looked quickly about him,
and said,--
"Vespers? Ah, yes! the children are at vespers."
He made a few steps forward, and looked into the garden, where
magnificent tulips were growing on all sides; then he suddenly stopped
short as if brought up against a wall, and cried out,--
"Why should they not combine within a given time?"
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Shadow out of Time by H. P. Lovecraft: stimulated by the known tenor of some of my reading - for the
consulltation of rare books at libraries cannot be effected secretly.
There is tangible proof - in the form of marginal notes - that
I went minutely through such things as the Comte d'Erlette's Cultes
des Goules, Ludvig Prinn's De Vermis Mysteriis, the Unaussprechlichen
Kulten of von Junzt, the surviving fragments of the puzzling Book
of Eibon, and the dreaded Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred.
Then, too, it is undeniable that a fresh and evil wave of underground
cult activity set in about the time of my odd mutation.
In the
summer of 1913 I began to display signs of ennui and flagging
Shadow out of Time |
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 Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson: me a monk," said Richard.
"Then, in honour, ye belong to me?" she concluded.
"In honour, madam, I suppose" - began the young man.
"Go to!" she interrupted; "ye are too full of catches. In honour
do ye belong to me, till ye have paid the evil?"
"In honour, I do," said Dick.
"Hear, then," she continued; "Ye would make but a sad friar,
methinks; and since I am to dispose of you at pleasure, I will even
take you for my husband. Nay, now, no words!" cried she. "They
will avail you nothing. For see how just it is, that you who
deprived me of one home, should supply me with another. And as for
|
