| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart: Jimmy's morning bath, cleaned the mouse cage. He even insisted on
peeling the little German potatoes, until Harmony cried aloud at
his wastefulness and took the knife from him.
And afterward, while Harmony in the sickroom read aloud and Jimmy
put the wooden sentry into the cage to keep order, he got out his
books and tried to study. But he did little work. His book lay on
his knee, his pipe died beside him. The strangeness of the
situation came over him, sitting there, and left him rather
frightened. He tried to see it from the viewpoint of an outsider,
and found himself incredulous and doubting. McLean would resent
the situation. Even the Portier was a person to reckon with. The
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft: no language save that which the dot groups expressed - had likewise
no voice save the imitated accents of their bygone masters.
XII
Danforth
and I have recollections of emerging into the great sculptured
hemisphere and of threading our back trail through the Cyclopean
rooms and corridors of the dead city; yet these are purely dream
fragments involving no memory of volition, details, or physical
exertion. It was as if we floated in a nebulous world or dimension
without time, causation, or orientation. The gray half-daylight
of the vast circular space sobered us somewhat; but we did not
At the Mountains of Madness |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: with the flux of Heracleitus. But Aristotle is only following Plato, and
Plato, as we have already seen, did not mean to imply that such a connexion
was admitted by Protagoras himself. His metaphysical genius saw or seemed
to see a common tendency in them, just as the modern historian of ancient
philosophy might perceive a parallelism between two thinkers of which they
were probably unconscious themselves. We must remember throughout that
Plato is not speaking of Heracleitus, but of the Heracliteans, who
succeeded him; nor of the great original ideas of the master, but of the
Eristic into which they had degenerated a hundred years later. There is
nothing in the fragments of Heracleitus which at all justifies Plato's
account of him. His philosophy may be resolved into two elements--first,
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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 Dreams & Dust by Don Marquis: And dares,
And flings you back your scorn,--
Come, face to face, and slay me if you will,
But not until you've felt the weight
Of all betricked humanity's contempt
In one bold blow!--
Speak forth a Reason, and I will answer it,
Yes, to your faces I will answer it;
Come garmented in flesh and I will fight with you,
Yes, in your faces will I smite you, gods;
Coward gods and tricksters that set traps
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