| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: type and shadow of things to come' leading men away from idols
and all manner of wickedness, and teaching them to worship only
the one true God, and to cleave to good works. By such wondrous
deeds, he brought them into a certain goodly land, the which he
had promised aforetime to Abraham the patriarch, that he would
give it unto his seed. And the task were long, to tell of all
the mighty and marvellous works full of glory and wonder, without
number, which he shewed unto them, by which it was his purpose to
pluck the human race from all unlawful worship and practice, and
to bring men back to their first estate. But even so our nature
was in bondage by its freedom to err, and death had dominion over
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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: causes existed. And yet, its realism was so hideous that I sometimes
find hope impossible.
If the thing did happen, then man must
be prepared to accept notions of the cosmos, and of his own place
in the seething vortex of time, whose merest mention is paralysing.
He must, too, be placed on guard against a specific, lurking peril
which, though it will never engulf the whole race, may impose
monstrous and unguessable horrors upon certain venturesome members
of it.
It is for this latter reason that I urge, with all the
force of my being, final abandonment of all the attempts at unearthing
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 United States Declaration of Independence: He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of
Officers to harass our People, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies
without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of
and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction
foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws;
giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders
United States Declaration of Independence |
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 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, etc. by Oscar Wilde: last of him. A deep grave had been dug in the corner of the
churchyard, just under the old yew-tree, and the service was read
in the most impressive manner by the Rev. Augustus Dampier. When
the ceremony was over, the servants, according to an old custom
observed in the Canterville family, extinguished their torches,
and, as the coffin was being lowered into the grave, Virginia
stepped forward and laid on it a large cross made of white and pink
almond-blossoms. As she did so, the moon came out from behind a
cloud, and flooded with its silent silver the little churchyard,
and from a distant copse a nightingale began to sing. She thought
of the ghost's description of the Garden of Death, her eyes became
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