| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Poems by Bronte Sisters: Evening's gentle air may still restore--
No! the morning sunshine mocks my anguish-
Time, for me, must never blossom more!
Strike it down, that other boughs may flourish
Where that perished sapling used to be;
Thus, at least, its mouldering corpse will nourish
That from which it sprung--Eternity.
STANZAS TO ----
Well, some may hate, and some may scorn,
And some may quite forget thy name;
But my sad heart must ever mourn
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Pathology of Lying, Etc. by William and Mary Healy: self-accuser, witness, and general social disturber.
Here again, we may call attention to the fact, which is of great
social importance, namely, that the person who is seemingly
normal in all other respects may be a pathological liar. It
might be naturally expected that the feebleminded, who frequently
have poor discernment of the relation of cause and effect,
including the phenomena of conduct, would often lie without
normal cause. As a matter of fact there is surprisingly little
of this among them, and one can find numerous mental defectives
who are faithful tellers of the truth, while even, as we have
found by other studies, some are good testifiers. Exaggerated
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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 Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft: that only a miracle can have stopped the medical fraternity from
noting strange parallelisms and drawing mystified conclusions.
A weird bunch of cuttings, all told; and I can at this date scarcely
envisage the callous rationalism with which I set them aside.
But I was then convinced that young Wilcox had known of the older
matters mentioned by the professor.
II. The Tale of Inspector
Legrasse.
The older matters which had made the sculptor's dream
and bas-relief so significant to my uncle formed the subject of
the second half of his long manuscript. Once before, it appears,
Call of Cthulhu |
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 Don Quixote by Miquel de Cervantes: that melancholy and depression were bringing him to his end. Don
Quixote begged them to leave him to himself, as he had a wish to sleep
a little. They obeyed, and he slept at one stretch, as the saying
is, more than six hours, so that the housekeeper and niece thought
he was going to sleep for ever. But at the end of that time he woke
up, and in a loud voice exclaimed, "Blessed be Almighty God, who has
shown me such goodness. In truth his mercies are boundless, and the
sins of men can neither limit them nor keep them back!"
The niece listened with attention to her uncle's words, and they
struck her as more coherent than what usually fell from him, at
least during his illness, so she asked, "What are you saying, senor?
Don Quixote |
