| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft: been through Dunwich.
Outsiders visit Dunwich as seldom as possible,
and since a certain season of horror all the signboards pointing
towards it have been taken down. The scenery, judged by an ordinary
aesthetic canon, is more than commonly beautiful; yet there is
no influx of artists or summer tourists. Two centuries ago, when
talk of witch-blood, Satan-worship, and strange forest presences
was not laughed at, it was the custom to give reasons for avoiding
the locality. In our sensible age - since the Dunwich horror of
1928 was hushed up by those who had the town's and the world's
welfare at heart - people shun it without knowing exactly why.
The Dunwich Horror |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: pleasant wood path, when there met him a young man of very
brisk and intelligent aspect, and clad in a rather singular
garb. He wore a short cloak and a sort of cap that seemed to be
furnished with a pair of wings; and from the lightness of his
step, you would have supposed that there might likewise be
wings on his feet. To enable him to walk still better (for he
was always on one journey or another) he carried a winged
staff, around which two serpents were wriggling and twisting.
In short, I have said enough to make you guess that it was
Quicksilver; and Ulysses (who knew him of old, and had learned
a great deal of his wisdom from him) recognized him in a
Tanglewood Tales |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: must make trial of this lot." Then the young prince asked in how
many years this overtook a man, and whether the doom of death was
without reprieve, and whether there was no way to escape it, and
avoid coming to such misery. They answered him, "In eighty or an
hundred years men arrive at this old age, and then they die,
since there is none other way; for death is a debt due to nature,
laid on man from the beginning, and its approach is inexorable."
When our wise and sagacious young prince saw and heard all this,
he sighed from the bottom of his heart. "Bitter is this life,"
cried he, "and fulfilled of all pain and anguish, if this be so.
And how can a body be careless in the expectation of an unknown
|
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 Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: accord belief to new opinions of which I had not the most certain
demonstrations, and not to give expression to aught that might tend to the
hurt of any one. This has been sufficient to make me alter my purpose of
publishing them; for although the reasons by which I had been induced to
take this resolution were very strong, yet my inclination, which has
always been hostile to writing books, enabled me immediately to discover
other considerations sufficient to excuse me for not undertaking the task.
And these reasons, on one side and the other, are such, that not only is
it in some measure my interest here to state them, but that of the public,
perhaps, to know them.
I have never made much account of what has proceeded from my own mind; and
Reason Discourse |
