| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft: As the hills draw nearer, one heeds their wooded sides
more than their stone-crowned tops. Those sides loom up so darkly
and precipitously that one wishes they would keep their distance,
but there is no road by which to escape them. Across a covered
bridge one sees a small village huddled between the stream and
the vertical slope of Round Mountain, and wonders at the cluster
of rotting gambrel roofs bespeaking an earlier architectural period
than that of the neighbouring region. It is not reassuring to
see, on a closer glance, that most of the houses are deserted
and falling to ruin, and that the broken-steepled church now harbours
the one slovenly mercantile establishment of the hamlet. One dreads
The Dunwich Horror |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Eve and David by Honore de Balzac: pleasure until you have a homogeneous substance. But who will
guarantee that it will be the same with a batch of five hundred reams,
and that your plan will succeed in bulk?"
David, Eve, and Petit-Claud looked at one another; their eyes said
many things.
"Take a somewhat similar case," continued the tall Cointet after a
pause. "You cut two or three trusses of meadow hay, and store it in a
loft before 'the heat is out of the grass,' as the peasants say; the
hay ferments, but no harm comes of it. You follow up your experiment
by storing a couple of thousand trusses in a wooden barn--and, of
course, the hay smoulders, and the barn blazes up like a lighted
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin: the head is often turned obliquely from side to side
in a most significant manner, apparently in order to judge
with more exactness from what point the sound proceeds.
But I have seen a dog greatly surprised at a new noise, turning,
his head to one side through habit, though he clearly perceived
the source of the noise. Dogs, as formerly remarked, when their
attention is in any way aroused, whilst watching some object,
or attending to some sound, often lift up one paw (fig. 4)
and keep it doubled up, as if to make a slow and stealthy approach.
A dog under extreme terror will throw himself down, howl, and void
his excretions; but the hair, I believe, does not become erect
Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals |
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 Anthem by Ayn Rand: muscles are drawn, as if their bodies were
shrinking and wished to shrink out of sight.
And a word steals into our mind, as we look
upon our brothers, and that word is fear.
There is fear hanging in the air of the
sleeping halls, and in the air of the streets.
Fear walks through the City, fear without name,
without shape. All men feel it and none dare to speak.
We feel it also, when we are in the Home of the
Street Sweepers. But here, in our tunnel,
we feel it no longer. The air is pure
Anthem |
