| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: as necessary to a confinement as it is to a washing day. Not bad--that
last remark of mine--for a professional fossil, eh?"
Andreas made no reply.
"Well, I'll be getting back to my patient. Why don't you take a walk, and
clear your head? That's the idea for you."
"No," he answered, "I won't do that; it's too rough."
He went back to his chair by the window. While the servant girl cleared
away he pretended to read...then his dreams! It seemed years since he had
had the time to himself to dream like that--he never had a breathing space.
Saddled with work all day, and couldn't shake it off in the evening like
other men. Besides, Anna was interested--they talked of practically
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Nana, Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille by Emile Zola: instruments amid a delicate trilling of flutes, a stifled tooting of
horns, a singing of violin notes, which floated forth amid the
increasing uproar of voices. All the spectators were talking,
jostling, settling themselves in a general assault upon seats; and
the hustling rush in the side passages was now so violent that every
door into the house was laboriously admitting the inexhaustible
flood of people. There were signals, rustlings of fabrics, a
continual march past of skirts and head dresses, accentuated by the
black hue of a dress coat or a surtout. Notwithstanding this, the
rows of seats were little by little getting filled up, while here
and there a light toilet stood out from its surroundings, a head
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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 Poems by Oscar Wilde: Amid the rush and reed,
See the lean fishes that are fain
Upon dead men to feed.
Sweet is the page that lieth there,
(Cloth of gold is goodly prey,)
See the black ravens in the air,
Black, O black as the night are they.
What do they there so stark and dead?
(There is blood upon her hand)
Why are the lilies flecked with red?
(There is blood on the river sand.)
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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 Shadow out of Time by H. P. Lovecraft: vaguely recognise lesser, archaic prototypes of many forms - dinosaurs,
pterodactyls, ichthyosaurs, labyrinthodonts, plesiosaurs, and
the like-made familiar through palaeontology. Of birds or mammals
there were none that I could discover.
The ground and swamps
were constantly alive with snakes, lizards, and crocodiles while
insects buzzed incessantly among the lush vegetation. And far
out at sea, unspied and unknown monsters spouted mountainous columns
of foam into the vaporous sky. Once I was taken under the ocean
in a gigantic submarine vessel with searchlights, and glimpsed
some living horrors of awesome magnitude. I saw also the ruins
Shadow out of Time |
