| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Child of Storm by H. Rider Haggard: "the Lily," of whom I hope to speak some day, I think the most beautiful
that ever lived among the Zulus. Also she was, I think, the most able,
the most wicked, and the most ambitious. Her attractive name--for it
was very attractive as the Zulus said it, especially those of them who
were in love with her--was Mameena, daughter of Umbezi. Her other name
was Child of Storm (Ingane-ye-Sipepo, or, more freely and shortly,
O-we-Zulu), but the word "Ma-mee-na" had its origin in the sound of the
wind that wailed about the hut when she was born.*
[*--The Zulu word "Meena"--or more correctly "Mina"--means "Come here,"
and would therefore be a name not unsuitable to one of the heroine's
proclivities; but Mr. Quatermain does not seem to accept this
Child of Storm |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Gentle Grafter by O. Henry: with the gossip that Judge Pendergast, the railroad's attorney, is in
the process of mortgaging Colonel Rockingham's farming lands to make
up the ransom.
While he is talking, two men crawl from under the bushes into camp,
and Caligula, with no white flag to disinter him from his plain duty,
draws his gun. But again Colonel Rockingham intervenes and introduces
Mr. Jones and Mr. Batts, engineer and fireman of train number forty-
two.
"Excuse us," says Batts, "but me and Jim have hunted squirrels all
over this mounting, and we don't need no white flag. Was that
straight, colonel, about the plum pudding and pineapples and real
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from War and the Future by H. G. Wells: disciplined and available, for conversion to the new task. The
imperative common sense of the position seems to be that the
European governments should set themselves straight away to out-
Ford Ford, and provide their own people with cheap road
transport.
But here comes in the question whether this common-sense course
is inevitable. Suppose the mental energy left in Europe after
the war is insufficient for such a constructive feat as this.
There will certainly be the obstruction of official pedantry, the
hold-up of this vested interest and that, the greedy desire of
"private enterprise" to exploit the occasion upon rather more
|
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 At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft: totally shattered in an ice rift we had noticed. In the latter
case the tunnel would probably turn out to be choked, so that
we would have to try the next nearest one - the one less than
a mile to the north. The intervening river course prevented our
trying any of the more southern tunnels on this trip; and indeed,
if both of the neighboring ones were choked it was doubtful whether
our batteries would warrant an attempt on the next northerly one
- about a mile beyond our second choice.
As we threaded our
dim way through the labyrinth with the aid of map and compass
- traversing rooms and corridors in every stage of ruin or preservation,
At the Mountains of Madness |
