| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Shadow out of Time by H. P. Lovecraft: recollections I gave were casual, and such as might have been
learned from my old private papers.
About the middle of August
I returned to Arkham and re-opened my long-closed house in Crane
Street. Here I installed a mechanism of the most curious aspect,
constructed piecemeal by different makers of scientific apparatus
in Europe and America, and guarded carefully from the sight of
any one intelligent enough to analyse it.
Those who did see
it - a workman, a servant, and the new housekeeper - say that
it was a queer mixture of rods, wheels, and mirros, though only
Shadow out of Time |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: spectres, dead men, a human race which no longer has anything great
about it, except its vanity. There Jules saw at his feet, in the long
valley of the Seine, between the slopes of Vaugirard and Meudon and
those of Belleville and Montmartre, the real Paris, wrapped in a misty
blue veil produced by smoke, which the sunlight tendered at that
moment diaphanous. He glanced with a constrained eye at those forty
thousand houses, and said, pointing to the space comprised between the
column of the Place Vendome and the gilded cupola of the Invalides:--
"She was wrenched from me there by the fatal curiosity of that world
which excites itself and meddles solely for excitement and
occupation."
Ferragus |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas: three-quarters of an hour, "but I thought, as it was yet only
twenty-five minutes past nine, it was not too late to wait upon
you."
"Twenty-five minutes past nine!" cried M. de Treville, looking at
the clock; "why, that's impossible!"
"Look, rather, monsieur," said D'Artagnan, "the clock shows it."
"That's true," said M. de Treville; "I believed it later. But
what can I do for you?"
Then D'Artagnan told M. de Treville a long history about the
queen. He expressed to him the fears he entertained with respect
to her Majesty; he related to him what he had heard of the
The Three Musketeers |
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 Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: to him all the same.
Alas! for my misfortune Victorine is not only a pretty girl, she is
also educated, intelligent, full of talent and of charm, without the
slightest pedantry or the faintest tinge of assumption. She converses
with reserve, and her nature has a melancholy grace which no one can
resist. She loves me, or at least she lets me think so; she has a
certain smile which she keeps for me alone; for me, her voice grows
softer still. Oh, yes! she loves me! But she adores her father; she
tells me of his kindness, his gentleness, his excellent qualities.
Those praises are so many dagger-thrusts with which she stabs me to
the heart.
|
