| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Herbert West: Reanimator by H. P. Lovecraft: men had entered the grounds, and their leader had aroused the
attendants. He was a menacing military figure who talked without
moving his lips and whose voice seemed almost ventriloquially
connected with an immense black case he carried. His expressionless
face was handsome to the point of radiant beauty, but had shocked
the superintendent when the hall light fell on it -- for it was
a wax face with eyes of painted glass. Some nameless accident
had befallen this man. A larger man guided his steps; a repellent
hulk whose bluish face seemed half eaten away by some unknown
malady. The speaker had asked for the custody of the cannibal
monster committed from Arkham sixteen years before; and upon being
Herbert West: Reanimator |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Falk by Joseph Conrad: river. It disappeared. Then without a word I
went down to breakfast. I just simply went down
to breakfast.
Not one of us uttered a sound till the mate, after
imbibing--by means of suction out of a saucer--
his second cup of tea, exclaimed: "Where the devil
is the man gone to?"
"Courting!" I shouted, with such a fiendish
laugh that the old chap didn't venture to open his
lips any more.
I started to the office perfectly calm. Calm with
Falk |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Call of the Canyon by Zane Grey: seemed dreaming, waiting, watching. For what? For her return to their
serene fastnesses--to the little gray log cabin. The thought stormed
Carley's soul.
Vivid and intense shone the images before her shut eyes. She saw the
winding forest floor, green with grass and fern, colorful with flower and
rock. A thousand aisles, glades, nooks, and caverns called her to come.
Nature was every woman's mother. The populated city was a delusion. Disease
and death and corruption stalked in the shadows of the streets. But her
canyon promised hard work, playful hours, dreaming idleness, beauty,
health, fragrance, loneliness, peace, wisdom, love, children, and long
life. In the hateful shut-in isolation of her room Carley stretched forth
The Call of the Canyon |
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 Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: man, and all the more monstrous for being so. And there he was,
the wretched thing, with no society, no companion, no kind of a
mate, living only to do mischief, and incapable of knowing what
affection means. Theseus hated him, and shuddered at him, and
yet could not but be sensible of some sort of pity; and all the
more, the uglier and more detestable the creature was. For he
kept striding to and fro, in a solitary frenzy of rage,
continually emitting a hoarse roar, which was oddly mixed up
with half-shaped words; and, after listening a while, Theseus
understood that the Minotaur was saying to himself how
miserable he was, and how hungry, and how he hated everybody,
Tanglewood Tales |
