| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Merry Men by Robert Louis Stevenson: turns, culling his simples.
The boy's head had fallen a little forward, his eyes were closed,
his fingers had fallen lax about his knees, when a sudden cry
called him to his feet. It was a strange sound, thin and brief; it
fell dead, and silence returned as though it had never been
interrupted. He had not recognised the Doctor's voice; but, as
there was no one else in all the valley, it was plainly the Doctor
who had given utterance to the sound. He looked right and left,
and there was Desprez, standing in a niche between two boulders,
and looking round on his adopted son with a countenance as white as
paper.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence: her shoulder, saying, laughing:
"But we walk side by side, and yet I'm in London arguing
with an imaginary Orpen; and where are you?"
At that instant Dawes passed, almost touching Morel.
The young man glanced, saw the dark brown eyes burning, full of hate
and yet tired.
"Who was that?" he asked of Clara.
"It was Baxter," she replied.
Paul took his hand from her shoulder and glanced round;
then he saw again distinctly the man's form as it approached him.
Dawes still walked erect, with his fine shoulders flung back, and his
Sons and Lovers |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft: April 12th the derelict was sighted; and though apparently deserted,
was found upon boarding to contain one survivor in a half-delirious
condition and one man who had evidently been dead for more than
a week. The living man was clutching a horrible stone idol of
unknown origin, about foot in height, regarding whose nature authorities
at Sydney University, the Royal Society, and the Museum in College
Street all profess complete bafflement, and which the survivor
says he found in the cabin of the yacht, in a small carved shrine
of common pattern.
This man, after recovering his senses, told
an exceedingly strange story of piracy and slaughter. He is Gustaf
Call of Cthulhu |
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 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: of a fiend peeping out -- or, whether it peeped or no, her mother
so imagined it -- from the unsearchable abyss of her black eyes.
"Child, what art thou?" cried the mother.
120 THE SCARLET LETTER
The Scarlet Letter |
