| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: the effect of appearances, and, showing the truth, would fain teach the
soul at last to find rest in the truth, and would thus save our life.
Would not mankind generally acknowledge that the art which accomplishes
this result is the art of measurement?
Yes, he said, the art of measurement.
Suppose, again, the salvation of human life to depend on the choice of odd
and even, and on the knowledge of when a man ought to choose the greater or
less, either in reference to themselves or to each other, and whether near
or at a distance; what would be the saving principle of our lives? Would
not knowledge?--a knowledge of measuring, when the question is one of
excess and defect, and a knowledge of number, when the question is of odd
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum: your fair Ruler."
"Glinda is now within her palace, awaiting you," returned the Captain; "for
she saw you coming long before you arrived."
"That is strange!" said Tip, wondering.
"Not at all," answered the Scarecrow, "for Glinda the Good is a mighty
Sorceress, and nothing that goes on in the Land of Oz escapes her notice. I
suppose she knows why we came as well as we do ourselves."
"Then what was the use of our coming?" asked Jack, stupidly.
"To prove you are a Pumpkinhead!" retorted the Scarecrow. "But, if the
Sorceress expects us, we must not keep her waiting."
Line-Art Drawing
The Marvelous Land of Oz |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft: and for a second it seemed that the composite sound included a
bizarre musical whistling or piping over a wide range as the blast
swept in and out of the omnipresent and resonant cave mouths.
There was a cloudy note of reminiscent repulsion in this sound,
as complex and unplaceable as any of the other dark impressions.
We were now, after a slow ascent, at a height of twenty-three
thousand, five hundred and seventy feet according to the aneroid;
and had left the region of clinging snow definitely below us.
Up here were only dark, bare rock slopes and the start of rough-ribbed
glaciers - but with those provocative cubes, ramparts, and echoing
cave mouths to add a portent of the unnatural, the fantastic,
At the Mountains of Madness |
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 From London to Land's End by Daniel Defoe: the re-building St. Paul's, they got more in this island than in
the great town of Dorchester, as we were told.
Though Portland stands a league off from the mainland of Britain,
yet it is almost joined by a prodigious riff of beach--that is to
say, of small stones cast up by the sea--which runs from the island
so near the shore of England that they ferry over with a boat and a
rope, the water not being above half a stone's-throw over; and the
said riff of beach ending, as it were, at that inlet of water,
turns away west, and runs parallel with the shore quite to
Abbotsbury, which is a town about seven miles beyond Weymouth.
I name this for two reasons: first, to explain again what I said
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