| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Of The Nature of Things by Lucretius: So that thou darest nowhere make a stop.
Oho, I'll follow thee until thou grant
The seed (which here thou say'st speaks, laughs, and
thinks)
Is yet derived out of other seeds
Which in their turn are doing just the same.
But if we see what raving nonsense this,
And that a man may laugh, though not, forsooth,
Compounded out of laughing elements,
And think and utter reason with learn'd speech,
Though not himself compounded, for a fact,
Of The Nature of Things |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Arizona Nights by Stewart Edward White: half-waking at the ranches where the relays waited, dozing again
as soon as the lanterns dropped behind. And Senor Johnson, alone
with his horses and the solemn stars, drove on, ever on, into the
desert.
By grey of the early summer dawn they arrived. The girl wakened,
descended, smiling uncertainly at Susie O'Toole, blinking
somnolently at her surroundings. Susie put her to bed in the
little southwest room where hung the shiny Colt's forty-five in
its worn leather "Texas-style" holster. She murmured incoherent
thanks and sank again to sleep, overcome by the fatigue of
unaccustomed travelling, by the potency of the desert air, by 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 Pivot of Civilization by Margaret Sanger: delinquents and dependents. These are the most dangerous elements in
the world community, the most devastating curse on human progress and
expression. Philanthropy is a gesture characteristic of modern
business lavishing upon the unfit the profits extorted from the
community at large. Looked at impartially, this compensatory
generosity is in its final effect probably more dangerous, more
dysgenic, more blighting than the initial practice of profiteering and
the social injustice which makes some too rich and others too poor.
[1] Birth Control Review. Vol. V. No. 4. p. 7.
CHAPTER VI: Neglected Factors of the World Problem
War has thrust upon us a new internationalism. To-day the world is
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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: normal to the non-human greenish tinge, whilst in the tail it
was manifest as a yellowish appearance which alternated with a
sickly grayish-white in the spaces between the purple rings. Of
genuine blood there was none; only the foetid greenish-yellow
ichor which trickled along the painted floor beyond the radius
of the stickiness, and left a curious discoloration behind it.
As the presence of the three men seemed to rouse the dying thing,
it began to mumble without turning or raising its head. Dr Armitage
made no written record of its mouthings, but asserts confidently
that nothing in English was uttered. At first the syllables defied
all correlation with any speech of earth, but towards the last
The Dunwich Horror |
