| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: receive her in the outer room when she appears leaning on the
arms of two eunuchs if she is a princess, or on two stout serving
women if a Chinese.
According to her rank, each one in turn takes a step towards her
and gives a low courtesy in which the left knee touches the
floor. Even the children go through this same formality. All are
gaily dressed, with hair bedecked and faces painted like her own.
She inclines her head but slightly. These are the members of her
household over whom she has sway--her little realm. While her
mother-in-law lived she was under the same rigorous rule.
In China where there are so many women in the home it is
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Crisis in Russia by Arthur Ransome: decide the question. And when we have to wage war, to
form new divisions, to find the best elements for them-to
whom do we turn? To the party, to the Central Committee.
And it gives directives to the local committees, 'Send
Communists to the front.' The case is precisely the same
with the Agrarian question, with that of supply, and with all
other questions whatsoever."
No one denies these facts, but their mere statement is quite
inadequate to explain what is being done in Russia and how
it is being done. I do not think it would be a waste of time
to set down as briefly as possible, without the comments of
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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 Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: decrepitude of a dying old man, the king, the man of power, rose
supreme. His eyes, of a light yellow, seemed at first sight extinct;
but a spark of courage and of anger lurked there, and at the slightest
touch it could burst into flames and cast fire about him. The doctor
was a stout burgher, with a florid face, dressed in black, peremptory,
greedy of gain, and self-important. These two personages were framed,
as it were, in that panelled chamber, hung with high-warped tapestries
of Flanders, the ceiling of which, made of carved beams, was blackened
by smoke. The furniture, the bed, all inlaid with arabesques in
pewter, would seem to-day more precious than they were at that period
when the arts were beginning to produce their choicest masterpieces.
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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 Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft: were gone through by bewildered officials, abnormal details were
duly kept from press and public, and men were sent to Dunwich
and Aylesbury to look up property and notify any who might be
heirs of the late Wilbur Whateley. They found the countryside
in great agitation, both because of the growing rumblings beneath
the domed hills, and because of the unwonted stench and the surging,
lapping sounds which came increasingly from the great empty shell
formed by Whateley's boarded-up farmhouse. Earl Sawyer, who tended
the horse and cattle during Wilbur's absence, had developed a
woefully acute case of nerves. The officials devised excuses not
to enter the noisome boarded place; and were glad to confine their
The Dunwich Horror |
