| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer: I perceived a shadowy form near the curtain to which he had referred.
I lay like a log, but my muscles were tensed nervously.
The shadow materialized as the figure moved forward into the room
with a curiously lithe movement.
The smoky lamp in the middle of the place afforded
scant illumination, serving only to indicate sprawling shapes--
here an extended hand, brown or yellow, there a sketchy,
corpse-like face; whilst from all about rose obscene sighings
and murmurings in far-away voices--an uncanny, animal chorus.
It was like a glimpse of the Inferno seen by some Chinese Dante.
But so close to us stood the newcomer that I was able to make out a
The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu |
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 Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: half forgetting his hidden treasure, he cried out mournfully:--
"Oh! my poor companion, have I lost you?--you who understood me so
well! Oh! you were my real treasure. There it lies, my treasure! With
you, my peace of mind, my affections, all, are gone. If you had only
known what good it would have done me to live two nights longer, you
would have lived, solely to please me, my poor sister! Ah, Jeanne!
thirteen hundred thousand crowns! Won't that wake you?--No, she is
dead!"
Thereupon, he sat down, and said no more; but two great tears issued
from his eyes and rolled down his hollow cheeks; then, with strange
exclamations of grief, he locked up the room and returned to the king.
|
