| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: like a young eagle from its eerie; and, father, while I go out freely,
I will return willingly: but if once I slip out through a loop-hole----"
She paused a moment, and then added, singing,--
The love that follows fain
Will never its faith betray:
But the faith that is held in a chain
Will never be found again,
If a single link give way.
The melody acted irresistibly on the harmonious propensities of the friar,
who accordingly sang in his turn,--
For hark! hark! hark!
|
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: This man, after recovering his senses, told
an exceedingly strange story of piracy and slaughter. He is Gustaf
Johansen, a Norwegian of some intelligence, and had been second
mate of the two-masted schooner Emma of Auckland, which sailed
for Callao February 20th with a complement of eleven men. The
Emma, he says, was delayed and thrown widely south of her course
by the great storm of March 1st, and on March 22nd, in S. Latitude
49°51' W. Longitude 128°34', encountered the Alert, manned by
a queer and evil-looking crew of Kanakas and half-castes. Being
ordered peremptorily to turn back, Capt. Collins refused; whereupon
the strange crew began to fire savagely and without warning upon
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 Dreams & Dust by Don Marquis: Ye are only one pale star!
A breath stirs the dark abysses. . . .
The deeps below the deep
Are troubled and vexed . . . and a thousand worlds
Fall on eternal sleep!
THE COMRADE
I
HATH not man at his noblest
An air of something more than man?--
A hint of grace immortal,
Born of his greatly daring to assist the gods
|
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 Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle: labored the horses that tugged at the slow-moving barges, laden with
barley meal or what not, from the countryside to the many-towered town.
But now, in the hot silence of the midday, no horse was seen nor
any man besides themselves. Behind them and before them stretched
the river, its placid bosom ruffled here and there by the purple dusk
of a small breeze.
"Now, good uncle," quoth Will Scarlet at last, when they
had walked for a long time beside this sweet, bright river,
"just beyond yon bend ahead of us is a shallow ford which in no
place is deeper than thy mid-thigh, and upon the other side
of the stream is a certain little hermitage hidden amidst
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood |
