| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James: - I went all lengths in my high spirits. "But fancy finding our
goddess in the temple of Vishnu! How strange of George to have
been able to go into the thing again in the midst of such different
and such powerful solicitations!"
"He hasn't gone into it, I know; it's the thing itself, let
severely alone for six months, that has simply sprung out at him
like a tigress out of the jungle. He didn't take a book with him -
on purpose; indeed he wouldn't have needed to - he knows every
page, as I do, by heart. They all worked in him together, and some
day somewhere, when he wasn't thinking, they fell, in all their
superb intricacy, into the one right combination. The figure in
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells: I turned and saw that the launch had now been unloaded, run out again,
and was being beached, and the white-haired man was walking towards us.
He addressed Montgomery.
"And now comes the problem of this uninvited guest. What are we
to do with him?"
"He knows something of science," said Montgomery.
"I'm itching to get to work again--with this new stuff,"
said the white-haired man, noddding towards the enclosure.
His eyes grew brighter.
"I daresay you are," said Montgomery, in anything but a cordial tone.
"We can't send him over there, and we can't spare the time to build
The Island of Doctor Moreau |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso: Their father's flocks, nor servants more I need:
Amid these groves I walk oft for my health,
And to the fishes, birds, and beasts give heed,
How they are fed, in forest, spring and lake,
And their contentment for example take.
XII
"Time was, for each one hath his doating time,
These silver locks were golden tresses then,
That country life I hated as a crime,
And from the forest's sweet contentment ran,
To Memphis's stately palace would I climb,
|
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 Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft: to revive His subjects and resume His rule of earth. The time
would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the
Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws
and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling
in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways
to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the
earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom. Meanwhile
the cult, by appropriate rites, must keep alive the memory of
those ancient ways and shadow forth the prophecy of their return.
In the elder time chosen men had talked with the entombed Old
Ones in dreams, but then something happened. The great stone city
Call of Cthulhu |
