| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Black Dwarf by Walter Scott: march lang syne; there's no a horn o' them about the tower. But
I'll see what o' them can be gotten back, and I'll take this day
twa days to meet Hobbie at the Castleton wi' twa friends on ilka
side, and see to make an agreement about a' the wrang he can wyte
me wi'."
"Ay, ay," said Elliot, "that will do weel eneugh."--And then
aside to his kinsman, "Murrain on the gear! Lordsake, man! say
nought about them. Let us but get puir Grace out o' that auld
hellicat's clutches."
"Will ye gie me your word, Earnscliff," said the marauder, who
still lingered at the shot-hole, "your faith and troth, with hand
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbot: all others had succumbed to the fascinations of corporal decoration,
the Priests and the Women alone still remained pure from
the pollution of paint.
Immoral, licentious, anarchical, unscientific -- call them
by what names you will -- yet, from an aesthetic point of view,
those ancient days of the Colour Revolt were the glorious childhood of
Art in Flatland -- a childhood, alas, that never ripened into manhood,
nor even reached the blossom of youth. To live was then in itself
a delight, because living implied seeing. Even at a small party,
the company was a pleasure to behold; the richly varied hues
of the assembly in a church or theatre are said to have more than once
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Shadow out of Time by H. P. Lovecraft: that they all form parts of some daemonic dream or illusion born
of delirium. A fever raged in my brain, and everything came to
me through a kind of haze - sometimes only intermittently.
The
rays of my torch shot feebly into the engulfing blackness, bringing
phantasmal flashes of hideously familiar walls and carvings, all
blighted with the decay of ages. In one place a tremendous mass
of vaulting had fallen, so that I had to clamber over a mighty
mound of stones reaching almost to the ragged, grotesquely stalactited
roof.
It was all the ultimate apex of nightmare, made worse
Shadow out of Time |
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 The Rig Veda: yea, with myriad gifts.
HYMN XXII. Asvins.
1. HITHERWARD have I called to-day, for succour, that most
wondrous
car
Which ye ascended, Asvins, ye whose paths are red, swift to
give Car,
for Surya's sake.
The Rig Veda |
