| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Shadow out of Time by H. P. Lovecraft: which I seemed to wish to hide rather than display. I would inadvertently
refer, with casual assurance, to specific events in dim ages outside
of the range of accepted history - passing off such references
as a jest when I saw the surprise they created. And I had a way
of speaking of the future which two or three times caused actual
fright.
These uncanny flashes soon ceased to appear, though
some observers laid their vanishment more to a certain furtive
caution on my part than to any waning of the strange knowledge
behind them. Indeed, I seemed anomalously avid to absorb the speech,
customs, and perspectives of the age around me; as if I were a
Shadow out of Time |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Lone Star Ranger by Zane Grey: was absolutely no doubt of his doom. If he clung to his covert
there was a chance, a merest chance, for his life. These
pursuers, dogged and unflagging as they had been, were mortally
afraid of him. It was his fame that made them cowards. Duane's
keenness told him that at the very darkest and most perilous
moment there was still a chance for him. And the blood in him,
the temper of his father, the years of his outlawry, the pride
of his unsought and hated career, the nameless, inexplicable
something in him made him accept that slim chance.
Waiting then became a physical and mental agony. He lay under
the burning sun, parched by thirst, laboring to breathe,
The Lone Star Ranger |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Troll Garden and Selected Stories by Willa Cather: but I fancy it's because one keeps cherishing a perfectly
unwarranted suspicion that under that big, hulking anatomy of his,
he may conceal a soul somewhere. Nicht wahr?"
"Something like that," said Margaret, thoughtfully, "except
that it's more than a suspicion, and it isn't groundless. He has
one, and he makes it known, somehow, without speaking."
"I always have my doubts about loquacious souls," Wyllis
remarked, with the unbelieving smile that had grown habitual with
him.
Margaret went on, not heeding the interruption. "I knew it
from the first, when he told me about the suicide of his cousin,
The Troll Garden and Selected Stories |
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 Charmides and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde: Already the slim crocus stirs the snow,
And soon yon blanched fields will bloom again
With nodding cowslips for some lad to mow,
For with the first warm kisses of the rain
The winter's icy sorrow breaks to tears,
And the brown thrushes mate, and with bright eyes the rabbit peers
From the dark warren where the fir-cones lie,
And treads one snowdrop under foot, and runs
Over the mossy knoll, and blackbirds fly
Across our path at evening, and the suns
Stay longer with us; ah! how good to see
|
