| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft: such that all the archways at the bottom seemed to have been recently
cleared.
It took us only a moment to conclude that this was
indeed the route by which those others had descended, and that
this would be the logical route for our own ascent despite the
long trail of paper we had left elsewhere. The tower’s mouth was
no farther from the foothills and our waiting plane than was the
great terraced building we had entered, and any further subglacial
exploration we might make on this trip would lie in this general
region. Oddly, we were still thinking about possible later trips
- even after all we had seen and guessed. Then, as we picked our
At the Mountains of Madness |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: all appeared, in the guise of a fleshless shape, like that in which
art embodies Time,--an old man bearing in one hand a scythe, in the
other a broken globe, the human universe.
Wilfrid had bidden to the scene his earliest illusions and his latest
hopes, human destiny and its conflicts, religion and its conquering
powers.
Minna saw heaven confusedly by glimpses; love raised a curtain wrought
with mysterious images, and the melodious sounds which met her ear
redoubled her curiosity.
To all three, therefore, this evening was to be what that other
evening had been for the pilgrims to Emmaus, what a vision was to
Seraphita |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Burning Daylight by Jack London: a born luck-pup who could not lose.
Sunday came, and Bob, out in the Piedmont hills, behaved like an
angel. His goodness, at times, was of the spirited prancing
order, but otherwise he was a lamb. Daylight, with doubled quirt
ready in his right hand, ached for a whirl, just one whirl, which
Bob, with an excellence of conduct that was tantalizing, refused
to perform. But no Dede did Daylight encounter. He vainly
circled about among the hill roads and in the afternoon took the
steep grade over the divide of the second range and dropped into
Maraga Valley. Just after passing the foot of the descent, he
heard the hoof beats of a cantering horse. It was from ahead and
|
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 Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum: "or we may hurt these pretty little people so they will never get over it."
A little farther on Dorothy met a most beautifully dressed
young Princess, who stopped short as she saw the strangers and
started to run away.
Dorothy wanted to see more of the Princess, so she ran after her.
But the china girl cried out:
"Don't chase me! Don't chase me!"
She had such a frightened little voice that Dorothy stopped
and said, "Why not?"
"Because," answered the Princess, also stopping, a safe
distance away, "if I run I may fall down and break myself."
The Wizard of Oz |
