| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tattine by Ruth Ogden [Mrs. Charles W. Ide]: quite ready to have a little fit of her own, to judge from her wild eyes and
bristling tail.
Tattine's futile rage was followed in a few minutes by, "Oh, Patrick, I never
dreamt it was Kittie. Has SHE been TRAINED to do it, do you think?"
"Oh. no, miss; it just comes natural to cats and kittens to prey upon birds
and birds' nests."
"Patrick," said Tattine solemnly, "there is not going to be any four-legged
thing left for me to love. I am done with Betsy and Doctor, and now I'm done
with Black-and-white. I wonder if Mamma can make it seem any better," and then
she turned her steps to the house in search of comfort, but she had gone only
half-way when the coachman, who was waiting at the door with the little grey
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: SOCRATES: That would be the business of the teacher of the chorus?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then what is the meaning of being able to rule over men who use
other men?
ALCIBIADES: I mean that they rule over men who have common rights of
citizenship, and dealings with one another.
SOCRATES: And what sort of an art is this? Suppose that I ask you again,
as I did just now, What art makes men know how to rule over their fellow-
sailors,--how would you answer?
ALCIBIADES: The art of the pilot.
SOCRATES: And, if I may recur to another old instance, what art enables
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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 Mosses From An Old Manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne: "Well; here is the thimble."
"But that is a strange idea of yours," said Owen, "about the
spiritualization of matter."
And then the thought stole into his mind that this young girl
possessed the gift to comprehend him better than all the world
besides. And what a help and strength would it be to him in his
lonely toil if he could gain the sympathy of the only being whom
he loved! To persons whose pursuits are insulated from the common
business of life--who are either in advance of mankind or apart
from it--there often comes a sensation of moral cold that makes
the spirit shiver as if it had reached the frozen solitudes
Mosses From An Old Manse |
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: stone shapes below us-once more outlined mystically against an
unknown west. As we did so we saw that the sky beyond had lost
its morning haziness; the restless ice-vapors having moved up
to the zenith, where their mocking outlines seemed on the point
of settling into some bizarre pattern which they feared to make
quite definite or conclusive.
There now lay revealed on the
ultimate white horizon behind the grotesque city a dim, elfin
line of pinnacled violet whose needle-pointed heights loomed dreamlike
against the beckoning rose color of the western sky. Up toward
this shimmering rim sloped the ancient table-land, the depressed
At the Mountains of Madness |
