| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: the head up the hill, and becoming gloomy all of a sudden.
His face was like the autumn sky, overcast one moment and
bright the next.
"When the manager, escorted by the pilgrims, all of them armed
to the teeth, had gone to the house this chap came on board.
`I say, I don't like this. These natives are in the bush,'
I said. He assured me earnestly it was all right.
`They are simple people,' he added; `well, I am glad you came.
It took me all my time to keep them off.' `But you said it
was all right,' I cried. `Oh, they meant no harm,' he said;
and as I stared he corrected himself, `Not exactly.'
Heart of Darkness |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Pool in the Desert by Sara Jeanette Duncan: been brought up altogether in the society of pussies and vicars and
elderly ladies, and of course you miss them. But you must have a
little patience. I shall be up tomorrow, if this beastly sea
continues to go down; and then we will try to find somebody suitable
to introduce to you.'
'Thank you, mamma,' said my daughter, without a ray of suspicion.
Then she added consideringly, 'Aunt Emma and Aunt Alice do seem
quite elderly ladies beside you, and yet you are older than either
of them aren't you? I wonder how that is.'
It was so innocent, so admirable, that I laughed at my own expense;
while Cecily, doing her hair, considered me gravely. 'I wish you
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Little Rivers by Henry van Dyke: white-birch. And then, when the days of my life were numbered, and
the sap had ceased to flow, and the last leaf had fallen, and the
dry bark hung around me in ragged curls and streamers, some
wandering hunter would come in the wintry night and touch a lighted
coal to my body, and my spirit would flash up in a fiery chariot
into the sky."
The chief occupation of our idle days on the Grande Decharge was
fishing. Above the camp spread a noble pool, more than two miles
in circumference, and diversified with smooth bays and whirling
eddies, sand beaches and rocky islands. The river poured into it
at the head, foaming and raging down a long chute, and swept out of
|
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 Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft: intensity the bas-relief on which the youth had found himself
working, chilled and clad only in his night clothes, when waking
had stolen bewilderingly over him. My uncle blamed his old age,
Wilcox afterwards said, for his slowness in recognizing both hieroglyphics
and pictorial design. Many of his questions seemed highly out
of place to his visitor, especially those which tried to connect
the latter with strange cults or societies; and Wilcox could not
understand the repeated promises of silence which he was offered
in exchange for an admission of membership in some widespread
mystical or paganly religious body. When Professor Angell became
convinced that the sculptor was indeed ignorant of any cult or
Call of Cthulhu |
