| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Shadow out of Time by H. P. Lovecraft: in monstrous form. In the dreams I now moved bodily among the
other unknown entities, reading terrible books from the endless
shelves and writing for hours at the great tables with a stylus
managed by the green tentacles that hung down from my head.
Snatches
of what I read and wrote would linger in my memory. There were
horrible annals of other worlds and other universes, and of stirrings
of formless life outside of all universes. There were records
of strange orders of beings which had peopled the world in forgotten
pasts, and frightful chronicles of grotesque-bodied intelligences
which would people it millions of years after the death of the
Shadow out of Time |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Purse by Honore de Balzac: temples, the regular arch of the eyebrows, the purity of outline,
the virginal innocence so plainly stamped on every feature of her
countenance, made the girl a perfect creature. Her figure was
slight and graceful, and frail in form. Her dress, though simple
and neat, revealed neither wealth nor penury.
As he recovered his senses, the painter gave expression to his
admiration by a look of surprise, and stammered some confused
thanks. He found a handkerchief pressed to his forehead, and
above the smell peculiar to a studio, he recognized the strong
odor of ether, applied no doubt to revive him from his fainting
fit. Finally he saw an old woman, looking like a marquise of the
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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 Ruling Passion by Henry van Dyke: ranges toward the Height of Land. In front of it the waters of the
gulf heave and sparkle far away to where the dim peaks of St. Anne
des Monts are traced along the southern horizon. Sheltered a
little, but not completely, by the island breakwater of granite,
lies the rocky beach of Dead Men's Point, where an English navy was
wrecked in a night of storm a hundred years ago.
There are a score of wooden houses, a tiny, weather-beaten chapel, a
Hudson Bay Company's store, a row of platforms for drying fish, and
a varied assortment of boats and nets, strung along the beach now.
Dead Men's Point has developed into a centre of industry, with a
life, a tradition, a social character of its own. And in one of
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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 Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: reached the wheel I felt the shock--it must have killed her instantly."
"It ripped her open----"
"Don't tell me, old sport." He winced. "Anyhow--Daisy stepped on it.
I tried to make her stop, but she couldn't, so I pulled on the emergency
brake. Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on.
"She'll be all right to-morrow," he said presently. "I'm just going to
wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness
this afternoon. She's locked herself into her room, and if he tries any
brutality she's going to turn the light out and on again."
"He won't touch her,' I said. "He's not thinking about her."
"I don't trust him, old sport."
The Great Gatsby |
