| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: forward to some aim of aggrandisement, can spare no time for a
detached, impersonal glance upon themselves.
And that's a pity. They are unlucky. These two kinds, together
with the much larger band of the totally unimaginative, of those
unfortunate beings in whose empty and unseeing gaze (as a great
French writer has put it) "the whole universe vanishes into blank
nothingness," miss, perhaps, the true task of us men whose day is
short on this earth, the abode of conflicting opinions. The
ethical view of the universe involves us at last in so many cruel
and absurd contradictions, where the last vestiges of faith,
hope, charity, and even of reason itself, seem ready to perish,
Some Reminiscences |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft: awful voyage. I cannot attempt to transcribe it verbatim in all
its cloudiness and redundance, but I will tell its gist enough
to shew why the sound the water against the vessel's sides became
so unendurable to me that I stopped my ears with cotton.
Johansen,
thank God, did not know quite all, even though he saw the city
and the Thing, but I shall never sleep calmly again when I think
of the horrors that lurk ceaselessly behind life in time and in
space, and of those unhallowed blasphemies from elder stars which
dream beneath the sea, known and favoured by a nightmare cult
ready and eager to loose them upon the world whenever another
Call of Cthulhu |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom by William and Ellen Craft: your friend arrives?" "I will have it up at once,
if you please." "Thank you, mum," continued the
maid, and out she glided.
After a good deal of giggling in the passage, some
one said, "You are in for it, butler, after all; so you
had better make the best of a bad job." But before
dinner was sent up, the landlord returned, and
having heard from the steward of the steamer by
which we came that we were bound for England,
the proprietor's native country, he treated us in the
most respectful manner.
Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom |
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 Padre Ignacio by Owen Wister: Then a smile of great beauty passed over his face, and he addressed the
strange. "I thank you. You will never know what you have done for me."
"It is nothing," answered the stranger, awkwardly. "He told me you set
great store on a new organ."
Padre Ignacio turned away from the ship and rode back through the gorge.
When he had reached the shady place where once he had sat with Gaston
Villere, he dismounted and again sat there, alone by the stream, for many
hours. Long rides and outings had been lately so much his custom that no
one thought twice of his absence; and when he resumed to the mission in
the afternoon, the Indian took his mule, and he went to his seat in the
garden. But it was with another look that he watched the sea; and
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