| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: compose the mind. And when the present is so exacting, who can
annoy himself about the future?
I came out at length above the Allier. A more unsightly prospect
at this season of the year it would be hard to fancy. Shelving
hills rose round it on all sides, here dabbled with wood and
fields, there rising to peaks alternately naked and hairy with
pines. The colour throughout was black or ashen, and came to a
point in the ruins of the castle of Luc, which pricked up
impudently from below my feet, carrying on a pinnacle a tall white
statue of Our Lady, which, I heard with interest, weighed fifty
quintals, and was to be dedicated on the 6th of October. Through
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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 Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft: by the lethal foetor that seemed about to asphyxiate them, were
almost hurled off their feet. Dogs howled from the distance, green
grass and foliage wilted to a curious, sickly yellow-grey, and
over field and forest were scattered the bodies of dead whippoorwills.
The stench left quickly, but the vegetation never came right
again. To this day there is something queer and unholy about the
growths on and around that fearsome hill Curtis Whateley was only
just regaining consciousness when the Arkham men came slowly down
the mountain in the beams of a sunlight once more brilliant and
untainted. They were grave and quiet, and seemed shaken by memories
and reflections even more terrible than those which had reduced
The Dunwich Horror |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare: Rom. Well in that hit you misse, sheel not be hit
With Cupids arrow, she hath Dians wit:
And in strong proofe of chastity well arm'd:
From loues weake childish Bow, she liues vncharm'd.
Shee will not stay the siege of louing tearmes,
Nor bid th' encounter of assailing eyes.
Nor open her lap to Sainct-seducing Gold:
O she is rich in beautie, onely poore,
That when she dies, with beautie dies her store
Ben. Then she hath sworne, that she will still liue chast?
Rom. She hath, and in that sparing make huge wast?
Romeo and Juliet |
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 Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: Jarnac'--I repeat that simply for the sake of illustration, and not to
tease you, Finot. Well, it is a fact, he belonged to the Faubourg
Saint-Germain.
"Beaudenord is the first pigeon that I will bring on the scene. And,
in the first place, his name was Godefroid de Beaudenord; neither
Finot, nor Blondet, nor Couture, nor I am likely to undervalue such an
advantage as that! After a ball, when a score of pretty women stand
behooded waiting for their carriages, with their husbands and adorers
at their sides, Beaudenord could hear his people called without a pang
of mortification. In the second place, he rejoiced in the full
complement of limbs; he was whole and sound, had no mote in his eyes,
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