| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: and the dead are more than the living in all our villages.
Answer me, ye people, are not these things true? "
A hoarse sound of approval ran through the circle. A
chant, in which the voices of the men and women blended, like
the shrill wind in the pinetrees above the rumbling thunder of
a waterfall, rose and fell in rude cadences.
O Thor, the Thunderer
Mighty and merciless,
Spare us from smiting!
Heave not thy hammer,
Angry, aginst us;
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Shadow out of Time by H. P. Lovecraft: command of many almost unknown sorts of knowledge - a command
which I seemed to wish to hide rather than display. I would inadvertently
refer, with casual assurance, to specific events in dim ages outside
of the range of accepted history - passing off such references
as a jest when I saw the surprise they created. And I had a way
of speaking of the future which two or three times caused actual
fright.
These uncanny flashes soon ceased to appear, though
some observers laid their vanishment more to a certain furtive
caution on my part than to any waning of the strange knowledge
behind them. Indeed, I seemed anomalously avid to absorb the speech,
Shadow out of Time |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Pool in the Desert by Sara Jeanette Duncan: after 'little breakfast,' as we say in India, he sought me in the
room I had set aside to be particularly my own.
Again I was writing to John, but this time I waited for precisely
his interruption. I had got no further than 'My dearest husband,'
and my pen-handle was a fringe.
'Another fine day,' I said, as if the old, old Indian joke could
give him ease, poor man!
'Yes,' said he, 'we are having lovely weather.'
He had forgotten that it was a joke. Then he lapsed into silence
while I renewed my attentions to my pen.
'I say,' he said at last, with so strained a look about his mouth
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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 Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin: and all his people; and, tho' he had now above one thousand men,
and the enemy who bad beaten Braddock did not at most exceed
four hundred Indians and French together, instead of proceeding,
and endeavoring to recover some of the lost honour, he ordered
all the stores, ammunition, etc., to be destroy'd, that he might
have more horses to assist his flight towards the settlements,
and less lumber to remove. He was there met with requests from
the governors of Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, that he would
post his troops on the frontiers, so as to afford some protection
to the inhabitants; but he continu'd his hasty march thro'
all the country, not thinking himself safe till he arriv'd
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin |
