| 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: further noise - but a moment afterward the slipping of blocks
under my feet raised a sudden and unprecedented din.
The din
was my undoing. For, falsely or not, I thought I heard it answered
in a terrible way from spaces far behind me. I thought I heard
a shrill, whistling sound, like nothing else on earth, and beyond
any adequate verbal description. If so, what followed has a grim
irony - since, save for the panic of this thing, the second thing
might never have happened.
As it was, my frenzy was absolute
and unrelieved. Taking my torch in my hand and clutching feebly
Shadow out of Time |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Men of Iron by Howard Pyle: during his school life, in those intervals of his more serious
studies when Prior Edward had permitted him to browse in the
greener pastures of the Gesta Romanorum and the Disciplina
Clericalis of the monastery library, and Gascoyne was never weary
of hearing him tell those marvellous stories culled from the
crabbed Latin of the old manuscript volumes.
Upon his part Gascoyne was full of the lore of the waiting-room
and the antechamber, and Myles, who in all his life had never
known a lady, young or old, excepting his mother, was never tired
of lying silently listening to Gascoyne's chatter of the gay
doings of the castle gentle-life, in which he had taken part so
Men of Iron |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: woman belonging to this class of society."
With this thought in his mind, conceived by the flame of this frenzied
desire, he fell upon the Comtesse de Vandenesse like a hawk on its
prey. That charming young woman in her head-dress of marabouts, which
produced the delightful "flou" of the paintings of Lawrence and
harmonized well with her gentle nature, was penetrated through and
through by the foaming vigor of this poet wild with ambition. Lady
Dudley, whom nothing escaped, aided this tete-a-tete by throwing the
Comte de Vandenesse with Madame de Manerville. Strong in her former
ascendancy over him, Natalie de Manerville amused herself by leading
Felix into the mazes of a quarrel of witty teasing, blushing half-
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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 La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: joined them. But although it was understood that they must not go to
their mother's room before a certain hour, they peeped in at the door
continually; and these morning inroads, made in defiance of the
original compact, were delicious moments for all three. Marie sprang
upon the bed to put his arms around his idolized mother, and Louis,
kneeling by the pillow, took her hand in his. Then came inquiries,
anxious as a lover's, followed by angelic laughter, passionate
childish kisses, eloquent silences, lisping words, and the little
ones' stories interrupted and resumed by a kiss, stories seldom
finished, though the listener's interest never failed.
"Have you been industrious?" their mother would ask, but in tones so
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