| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley: "wharf of Lethe," by which they rot "dull as the oozy weed." You
foreknow your doom by sad experience. A great deal of dressing, a
lounge in the club-room, a stare out of the window with the
telescope, an attempt to take a bad sketch, a walk up one parade
and down another, interminable reading of the silliest of novels,
over which you fall asleep on a bench in the sun, and probably have
your umbrella stolen; a purposeless fine-weather sail in a yacht,
accompanied by many ineffectual attempts to catch a mackerel, and
the consumption of many cigars; while your boys deafen your ears,
and endanger your personal safety, by blazing away at innocent
gulls and willocks, who go off to die slowly; a sport which you
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Fantastic Fables by Ambrose Bierce: Citizen, "it is worth while to do what you can."
Fortune and the Fabulist
A WRITER of Fables was passing through a lonely forest when he met
a Fortune. Greatly alarmed, he tried to climb a tree, but the
Fortune pulled him down and bestowed itself upon him with cruel
persistence.
"Why did you try to run away?" said the Fortune, when his struggles
had ceased and his screams were stilled. "Why do you glare at me
so inhospitably?"
"I don't know what you are," replied the Writer of Fables, deeply
disturbed.
Fantastic Fables |
| 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: it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each
straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little;
but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will
open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful
position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation
or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark
age.
Theosophists have guessed at the awesome grandeur of the
cosmic cycle wherein our world and human race form transient incidents.
They have hinted at strange survivals in terms which would freeze
the blood if not masked by a bland optimism. But it is not from
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 Manon Lescaut by Abbe Prevost: ascendancy in my heart, and made me sensible of my shame and
degradation. But this was soon over. For Manon I could have
given up my hopes of heaven, and when I again found myself at her
side, I wondered how I could for an instant have considered
myself degraded by my passion for this enchanting girl.
"Manon was a creature of most extraordinary disposition. Never
had mortal a greater contempt for money, and yet she was haunted
by perpetual dread of wanting it. Her only desire was for
pleasure and amusement. She would never have wished to possess a
sou, if pleasure could be procured without money. She never even
cared what our purse contained, provided she could pass the day
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