| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A House of Pomegranates by Oscar Wilde: So the Star-Child was brought up with the children of the
Woodcutter, and sat at the same board with them, and was their
playmate. And every year he became more beautiful to look at, so
that all those who dwelt in the village were filled with wonder,
for, while they were swarthy and black-haired, he was white and
delicate as sawn ivory, and his curls were like the rings of the
daffodil. His lips, also, were like the petals of a red flower,
and his eyes were like violets by a river of pure water, and his
body like the narcissus of a field where the mower comes not.
Yet did his beauty work him evil. For he grew proud, and cruel,
and selfish. The children of the Woodcutter, and the other
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Herbert West: Reanimator by H. P. Lovecraft: house from the field in the rear, took the specimen in the back
door and down the cellar stairs, and prepared it for the usual
experiment. Our fear of the police was absurdly great, though
we had timed our trip to avoid the solitary patrolman of that
section.
The result was wearily anticlimactic. Ghastly as our
prize appeared, it was wholly unresponsive to every solution we
injected in its black arm; solutions prepared from experience
with white specimens only. So as the hour grew dangerously near
to dawn, we did as we had done with the others -- dragged the
thing across the meadows to the neck of the woods near the potter’s
Herbert West: Reanimator |
