| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: this sort of exercise we never hit the gold; the most that we
can hope is by many arrows, more or less far off on different
sides, to indicate, in the course of time, for what target we
are aiming, and after an hour's talk, back and forward, to
convey the purport of a single principle or a single thought.
And yet while the curt, pithy speaker misses the point
entirely, a wordy, prolegomenous babbler will often add three
new offences in the process of excusing one. It is really a
most delicate affair. The world was made before the English
language, and seemingly upon a different design. Suppose we
held our converse not in words, but in music; those who have a
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Othello by William Shakespeare: Looke to your house, your daughter, and your Bags,
Theeues, Theeues
Bra. Aboue. What is the reason of this terrible
Summons? What is the matter there?
Rodo. Signior is all your Familie within?
Iago. Are your Doores lock'd?
Bra. Why? Wherefore ask you this?
Iago. Sir, y'are rob'd, for shame put on your Gowne,
Your heart is burst, you haue lost halfe your soule
Euen now, now, very now, an old blacke Ram
Is tupping your white Ewe. Arise, arise,
Othello |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H. P. Lovecraft: windows of Bahama's terraces mellow lights peeped out quietly
and gradually as the stars peep out overhead in the dusk, till
that steep and climbing seaport became a glittering constellation
hung between the stars of heaven and the reflections of those
stars in the still harbour.
The captain, after landing, made
Carter a guest in his own small house on the shores of Yath where
the rear of the town slopes down to it; and his wife and servants
brought strange toothsome foods for the traveller's delight. And
in the days after that Carter asked for rumours and legends of
Ngranek in all the taverns and public places where lava-gatherers
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath |
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 One Basket by Edna Ferber: masterfulness came back to him. "No, I want to know about you
first. I can't get the rights of it, you being here on South
Water, tradin' and all."
So she told him briefly. She was in the commission business.
Successful. She bought, too, for such hotels as the Blackstone
and the Congress, and for half a dozen big restaurants. She gave
him bare facts, but he was shrewd enough and sufficiently versed
in business to know that here was a woman of established
commercial position.
"But how does it happen you're keepin' it up, Emma, all this
time? Why, you must be anyway--it ain't that you look
One Basket |
