| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Human Drift by Jack London: agricultural stage gave support to a still larger population; and,
to-day, with the increased food-getting efficiency of a machine
civilisation, an even larger population is made possible. Nor is
this theoretical. The population is here, a billion and three
quarters of men, women, and children, and this vast population is
increasing on itself by leaps and bounds.
A heavy European drift to the New World has gone on and is going
on; yet Europe, whose population a century ago was 170,000,000,
has to-day 500,000,000. At this rate of increase, provided that
subsistence is not overtaken, a century from now the population of
Europe will be 1,500,000,000. And be it noted of the present rate
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy: She watched till the postman passed by, ran out to him
with her epistle, and then again took her listless
place inside the window-panes.
It was just as well to write like that as to write
tenderly. How could he give way to entreaty? The
facts had not changed: there was no new event to alter
his opinion.
It grew darker, the fire-light shining over the room.
The two biggest of the younger children had gone out
with their mother; the four smallest, their ages
ranging from three-and-a-half years to eleven, all in
Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: The hours and the miles are counted, the tributes numbered and weighed,
And woe to him that comes short, and woe to him that delayed!"
So spoke on the beach the mother, and counselled the wiser thing.
For Rahero stirred in the country and secretly mined the king.
Nor were the signals wanting of how the leaven wrought,
In the cords of obedience loosed and the tributes grudgingly brought.
And when last to the temple of Oro the boat with the victim sped,
And the priest uncovered the basket and looked on the face of the dead,
Trembling fell upon all at sight of an ominous thing,
For there was the aito (1) dead, and he of the house of the king.
So spake on the beach the mother, matter worthy of note,
Ballads |
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 Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H. P. Lovecraft: also that the rumoured Shantak-birds are no wholesome things;
it being. indeed for the best that no man has ever truly seen
one (for that fabled father of Shantaks in the king's dome is
fed in the dark).
The next day, saying that he wished to look
over all the various mines for himself and to visit the scattered
farms and quaint onyx villages of Inquanok, Carter hired a yak
and stuffed great leathern saddle-bags for a journey. Beyond the
Gate of the Caravans the road lay straight betwixt tilled fields,
with many odd farmhouses crowned by low domes. At some of these
houses the seeker stopped to ask questions; once finding a host
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath |
