| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft: wondered how any door in the universe could be so vast. Then,
very softly and slowly, the acre-great lintel began to give inward
at the top; and they saw that it was balauced
Donovan slid or
somehow propelled himself down or along the jamb and rejoined
his fellows, and everyone watched the queer recession of the monstrously
carven portal. In this phantasy of prismatic distortion it moved
anomalously in a diagonal way, so that all the rules of matter
and perspective seemed upset.
The aperture was black with a
darkness almost material. That tenebrousness was indeed a positive
Call of Cthulhu |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Crito by Plato: unwise are evil?
CRITO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And what was said about another matter? Is the pupil who
devotes himself to the practice of gymnastics supposed to attend to the
praise and blame and opinion of every man, or of one man only--his
physician or trainer, whoever he may be?
CRITO: Of one man only.
SOCRATES: And he ought to fear the censure and welcome the praise of that
one only, and not of the many?
CRITO: Clearly so.
SOCRATES: And he ought to act and train, and eat and drink in the way
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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 The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy: hardly, in fact, did he appear to understand the meaning of all she
said; but what was more certain still, was that never after that could
she detect the slightest sign of that love, which she once believed
had been wholly hers. Now they had drifted quite apart, and Sir Percy
seemed to have laid aside his love for her, as he would an ill-fitting
glove. She tried to rouse him by sharpening her ready wit against his
dull intellect; endeavouring to excite his jealousy, if she could not
rouse his love; tried to goad him to self-assertion, but all in vain.
He remained the same, always passive, drawling, sleepy, always
courteous, invariably a gentleman: she had all that the world and a
wealthy husband can give to a pretty woman, yet on this beautiful
The Scarlet Pimpernel |
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 Dream Life and Real Life by Olive Schreiner: and looked in at the little home; at the purple flowers stuck about the
room, and the kippersol on the shelf. Her light fell on the willow trees,
and on the high rocks, and on a little new-made heap of earth and round
stones. Three men knew what was under it; and no one else ever will.
Lily Kloof,
South Africa.
II. THE WOMAN'S ROSE.
I have an old, brown carved box; the lid is broken and tied with a string.
In it I keep little squares of paper, with hair inside, and a little
picture which hung over my brother's bed when we were children, and other
things as small. I have in it a rose. Other women also have such boxes
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