| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: Weems) with its bat-haunted caves, where the Chevalier Johnstone,
on his flight from Culloden, passed a night of superstitious
terrors; Leven, a bald, quite modern place, sacred to summer
visitors, whence there has gone but yesterday the tall figure and
the white locks of the last Englishman in Delhi, my uncle Dr.
Balfour, who was still walking his hospital rounds, while the
troopers from Meerut clattered and cried "Deen Deen" along the
streets of the imperial city, and Willoughby mustered his handful
of heroes at the magazine, and the nameless brave one in the
telegraph office was perhaps already fingering his last despatch;
and just a little beyond Leven, Largo Law and the smoke of Largo
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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 Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H. P. Lovecraft: he had faintly heard, in lower parts of the temple while absorbed
in the old priest's conversation. He recalled, too, the evilly
hungry way in which an especially impudent young Zoog had regarded
a small black kitten in the cobbled street outside. And because
he loved nothing on earth more than small black kittens, he stooped
and petted the sleek cats of Ulthar as they licked their chops,
and did not mourn because those inquisitive Zoogs would escort
him no farther.
It was sunset now, so Carter stopped at an ancient
inn on a steep little street overlooking the lower town. And as
he went out on the balcony of his room and gazed down at the sea
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence: an' for little Lady Jane! Put thy shimmy on, Lady Chatterley! Tha might
be anybody, standin' there be-out even a shimmy, an' a few rags o'
flowers. There then, there then, I'll undress thee, tha bob-tailed
young throstle.' And he took the leaves from her hair, kissing her damp
hair, and the flowers from her breasts, and kissed her breasts, and
kissed her navel, and kissed her maiden-hair, where he left the flowers
threaded. 'They mun stop while they will,' he said. 'So! There tha'rt
bare again, nowt but a bare-arsed lass an' a bit of a Lady Jane! Now
put thy shimmy on, for tha mun go, or else Lady Chatterley's goin' to
be late for dinner, an' where 'ave yer been to my pretty maid!'
She never knew how to answer him when he was in this condition of the
Lady Chatterley's Lover |
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 Jungle by Upton Sinclair: happen again--but in vain. Each crisis would leave Jurgis more and
more frightened, more disposed to distrust Elzbieta's consolations,
and to believe that there was some terrible thing about all this
that he was not allowed to know. Once or twice in these outbreaks he
caught Ona's eye, and it seemed to him like the eye of a hunted animal;
there were broken phrases of anguish and despair now and then, amid her
frantic weeping. It was only because he was so numb and beaten himself
that Jurgis did not worry more about this. But he never thought of it,
except when he was dragged to it--he lived like a dumb beast of burden,
knowing only the moment in which he was.
The winter was coming on again, more menacing and cruel than ever.
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