| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Don Quixote by Miquel de Cervantes: and this was no doubt a kind of prophecy, for poets are also called
vates, that is to say diviners; and its truth was made plain; for
since then a famous Andalusian poet has lamented and sung her tears,
and another famous and rare poet, a Castilian, has sung her beauty."
"Tell me, Senor Don Quixote," said the barber here, "among all those
who praised her, has there been no poet to write a satire on this Lady
Angelica?"
"I can well believe," replied Don Quixote, "that if Sacripante or
Roland had been poets they would have given the damsel a trimming; for
it is naturally the way with poets who have been scorned and
rejected by their ladies, whether fictitious or not, in short by those
Don Quixote |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft: terror which will never leave me till I, too, am at rest; "accidentally"
or otherwise. Persuad-g the widow that my connexion with her husband's
"technical matters" was sufficient to entitle me to his manuscript,
I bore the document away and began to read it on the London boat.
It was a simple, rambling thing - a naive sailor's effort at
a post-facto diary - and strove to recall day by day that last
awful voyage. I cannot attempt to transcribe it verbatim in all
its cloudiness and redundance, but I will tell its gist enough
to shew why the sound the water against the vessel's sides became
so unendurable to me that I stopped my ears with cotton.
Johansen,
Call of Cthulhu |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: about her waist, he made her lean gently upon him. Eugenie no longer
resisted; she received and gave the purest, the sweetest, and yet,
withal, the most unreserved of kisses.
"Dear Eugenie, a cousin is better than a brother, for he can marry
you," said Charles.
"So be it!" cried Nanon, opening the door of her lair.
The two lovers, alarmed, fled into the hall, where Eugenie took up her
work and Charles began to read the litanies of the Virgin in Madame
Grandet's prayer-book.
"Mercy!" cried Nanon, "now they're saying their prayers."
As soon as Charles announced his immediate departure, Grandet
Eugenie Grandet |
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 Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther: to love, praise, and thank Him for it without ceasing, and, in short,
to serve Him with all these things as He demands and has enjoined in
the Ten Commandments.
Here we could say much if we were to expatiate, how few there are that
believe this article. For we all pass over it, hear it and say it, but
neither see nor consider what the words teach us. For if we believed it
with the heart, we would also act accordingly, and not stalk about
proudly, act defiantly, and boast as though we had life, riches, power,
and honor, etc., of ourselves, so that others must fear and serve us,
as is the practice of the wretched, perverse world, which is drowned in
blindness, and abuses all the good things and gifts of God only for its
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