| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Anthem by Ayn Rand: long ago, that men did not see whither they
were going, and went on, in blindness and
cowardice, to their fate. I wonder, for it
is hard for me to conceive how men who
knew the word "I" could give it up and
not know what they lost. But such has been
the story, for I have lived in the City of
the damned, and I know what horror men
permitted to be brought upon them.
Perhaps, in those days, there were a few
among men, a few of clear sight and clean
Anthem |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Shadow out of Time by H. P. Lovecraft: the others about my find, and Dyer, Freeborn, Boyle, my son, and
I set out to view the anomalous block. Failure, however, confronted
us. I had formed no clear idea of the stone's location, and a
late ind had wholly altered the hillocks of shifting sand.
VI
I come now to the crucial and most difficult part of my narrative
- all the more difficult because I cannot be quite certain of
its reality. At times I feel uncomfortably sure that I was not
dreaming or deluded; and it is this feelingin view of the stupendous
implications which the objective truth of my experience would
raise - which impels me to make this record.
Shadow out of Time |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Mad King by Edgar Rice Burroughs: self.
"As for my familiarity with your appearance, you know
as well as I that I have never seen you before. But that is
not necessary--you conform perfectly to the printed descrip-
tion of you with which the kingdom is flooded. Were that
not enough, the fact that you were discovered with old Von
der Tann's daughter is sufficient to remove the least doubt
as to your identity."
"You are governor of Blentz," cried Barney, "and yet you
say that you have never seen the king?"
"Certainly," replied Maenck. "After you escaped the en-
The Mad King |
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 Walking by Henry David Thoreau: I do not know of any poetry to quote which adequately expresses
this yearning for the Wild. Approached from this side, the best
poetry is tame. I do not know where to find in any literature,
ancient or modern, any account which contents me of that Nature
with which even I am acquainted. You will perceive that I demand
something which no Augustan nor Elizabethan age, which no
culture, in short, can give. Mythology comes nearer to it than
anything. How much more fertile a Nature, at least, has Grecian
mythology its root in than English literature! Mythology is the
crop which the Old World bore before its soil was exhausted,
before the fancy and imagination were affected with blight; and
Walking |
