| 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: however, were singular in the extreme, involving long visits to
remote and desolate places.
In 1909 I spent a month in the Himalayas,
and in 1911 roused much attention through a camel trip into the
unknown deserts of Arabia. What happened on those journeys I have
never been able to learn.
During the summer of l9l2 I chartered
a ship and sailed in the Arctic, north of Spitzbergen, afterward
showing signs of disappointment.
Later in that year I spent
weeks - alone beyond the limits of previous or subsequent exploration
Shadow out of Time |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: good look at it--it was plain she was counting the spots--and put it down.
"No, Lottie, you can't do that. You mustn't look first. You must turn it
the other way over."
"But then everybody will see it the same time as me," said Lottie.
The game proceeded. Mooe-ooo-er! The bull was terrible. He charged over
the table and seemed to eat the cards up.
Bss-ss! said the bee.
Cock-a-doodle-do! Isabel stood up in her excitement and moved her elbows
like wings.
Baa! Little Rags put down the King of Diamonds and Lottie put down the one
they called the King of Spain. She had hardly any cards left.
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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 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, etc. by Oscar Wilde: the smoke of day, a pallid, ghost-like city, a desolate town of
tombs! He wondered what they thought of it, and whether they knew
anything of its splendour and its shame, of its fierce, fiery-
coloured joys, and its horrible hunger, of all it makes and mars
from morn to eve. Probably it was to them merely a mart where they
brought their fruits to sell, and where they tarried for a few
hours at most, leaving the streets still silent, the houses still
asleep. It gave him pleasure to watch them as they went by. Rude
as they were, with their heavy, hob-nailed shoes, and their awkward
gait, they brought a little of a ready with them. He felt that
they had lived with Nature, and that she had taught them peace. He
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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 Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: was being signed between France and the Coalition. Kings and princes
came to perform their orbits, like stars, round Napoleon, who gave
himself the pleasure of dragging all Europe in his train--a
magnificent experiment in the power he afterwards displayed at
Dresden. Never, as contemporaries tell us, did Paris see
entertainments more superb than those which preceded and followed the
sovereign's marriage with an Austrian archduchess. Never, in the most
splendid days of the Monarchy, had so many crowned heads thronged the
shores of the Seine, never had the French aristocracy been so rich or
so splendid. The diamonds lavishly scattered over the women's dresses,
and the gold and silver embroidery on the uniforms contrasted so
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