| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the
scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to
modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful
impression; and, acting upon this idea, I reined my horse
to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in
unruffled lustre by the dwelling, and gazed down--but with a
shudder even more thrilling than before--upon the remodelled and
inverted images of the grey sedge, and the ghastly tree-stems,
and the vacant and eye-like windows.
Nevertheless, in this mansion of gloom I now proposed to
myself a sojourn of some weeks. Its proprietor, Roderick Usher,
The Fall of the House of Usher |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tattine by Ruth Ogden [Mrs. Charles W. Ide]: the fledglings. Refreshed by their rest on the shafts, they flapped their
tiny wings and fluttered up to the anxious mother bird on the branches above
them, wholly unconscious that they had been in any peril whatsoever.
"And Black-and-white would have killed them, every one, if she had had the
chance," thought Tattine; "oh, if I only knew how to teach her a lesson!"
CHAPTER V. THE KIRKS AT HOME
Barney the donkey was harnessed, and Tattine sat in the little donkey-cart
waiting, and as she waited she was saying aloud, "What, Grandma Luty? Yes,
Grandma Luty. No, Grandma Luty. What did you say, Grandma Luty?" and this she
said in the most polite little tone imaginable. Meantime Rudolph and Mabel,
discovering that Tattine did not see them, came stealing along under cover of
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: expenses; he will set, not mountains fighting, for he sells them, but
planets; he will work to make the worse appear the better cause, and
take advantage of a technical error to win the day for a rogue. If one
of these fellows tries one of Maitre Gonin's tricks once too often,
the guild forces him to sell his connection. Desroches, our friend
Desroches, understood the full resources of a trade carried on in a
beggarly way enough by poor devils; he would buy up causes of men who
feared to lose the day; he plunged into chicanery with a fixed
determination to make money by it. He was right; he did his business
very honestly. He found influence among men in public life by getting
them out of awkward complications; there was our dear les Lupeaulx,
|
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 Herbert West: Reanimator by H. P. Lovecraft: to the specimen, and bore the negative results philosophically.
After about three-quarters of an hour without the least sign of
life he disappointedly pronounced the solution inadequate, but
determined to make the most of his opportunity and try one change
in the formula before disposing of his ghastly prize. We had that
afternoon dug a grave in the cellar, and would have to fill it
by dawn -- for although we had fixed a lock on the house, we wished
to shun even the remotest risk of a ghoulish discovery. Besides,
the body would not be even approximately fresh the next night.
So taking the solitary acetylene lamp into the adjacent laboratory,
we left our silent guest on the slab in the dark, and bent every
Herbert West: Reanimator |
