| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Night and Day by Virginia Woolf: disposition was highly convenient in a family much given to the
manufacture of phrases, and seemed to argue a corresponding capacity
for action, she was, from her childhood even, put in charge of
household affairs. She had the reputation, which nothing in her manner
contradicted, of being the most practical of people. Ordering meals,
directing servants, paying bills, and so contriving that every clock
ticked more or less accurately in time, and a number of vases were
always full of fresh flowers was supposed to be a natural endowment of
hers, and, indeed, Mrs. Hilbery often observed that it was poetry the
wrong side out. From a very early age, too, she had to exert herself
in another capacity; she had to counsel and help and generally sustain
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from 1492 by Mary Johntson: running from San Lucar to Marseilles. I've had no news
this long while! What's doing at Palos?''
They were ready for an audience, any audience, and
forthwith I had the story of the Admiral fairly straight--
or I could make it straight--from that day when we parted
on the Cordova road. These men did not know what had
happened in March or in April, but they knew something
of May. In May he came to Palos and settled down with
Fray Juan Perez in La Rabida, and to see him went Captain
Martin Pinzon who knew him already, and the physician
Garcia Fernandez and others, and they all talked together
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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 Hiero by Xenophon: token of kindliness inspired by affection, since he knows such
ministry is free from all compulsion. Whilst to the tyrant, the
confidence that he is loved is quite foreclosed. On the contrary,[47]
we know for certain that service rendered through terror will
stimulate as far as possible the ministrations of affection. And it is
a fact, that plots and conspiracies against despotic rulers are
oftenest hatched by those who most of all pretend to love them.[48]
[43] "The 'innere Unterhaltung'"; the {oarismos}. Cf. Milton, "P. L.":
With thee conversing, I forget all time.
[44] Cf. Ter. "Andr." iii. 3. 23, "amantium irae amoris
intergratiost."
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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 Out of Time's Abyss by Edgar Rice Burroughs: "It suits me," said Plesser. "Now that the captain-lieutenant is
dead you need not fear us. All our lives we have known nothing
but to obey his class. If I had not killed him, I suppose I
would be fool enough to obey him again; but he is dead. Now we
will obey you--we must obey some one."
"And you?" Bradley turned to the other survivors of the original
crew of the U-33. Each promised obedience.
The two dead Germans were buried in a single grave, and then the
party boarded the submarine and stowed away the oil.
Here Bradley told the men what had befallen him since the night
of September 14th when he had disappeared so mysteriously from
Out of Time's Abyss |
