| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: or have gone astray during the troubles in Greece,--a country where
registers are not kept as they are in France, and where we have no
consul. Uncertain whether she might not be forced to give up her
fortune, she has lived with the utmost prudence. As for me, I wish to
acquire property which shall be MINE, so as to provide for my wife in
case she is forced to lose hers."
"But why didn't you tell me all this? My dear nephew, you might have
known that I love you enough to pay all your good debts, the debts of
a gentleman. I'll play the traditional uncle now, and revenge myself!"
"Ah! uncle, I know your vengeance! but let me get rich by my own
industry. If you want to do me a real service, make me an allowance of
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Camille by Alexandre Dumas: died so soon.
God's will be done!
February 5.
Oh, come, come, Armand! I suffer horribly; I am going to die, O
God! I was so miserable yesterday that I wanted to spend the
evening, which seemed as if it were going to be as long as the
last, anywhere but at home. The duke came in the morning. It
seems to me as if the sight of this old man, whom death has
forgotten, makes me die faster.
Despite the burning fever which devoured me, I made them dress me
and take me to the Vaudeville. Julie put on some rouge for me,
Camille |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Prufrock/Other Observations by T. S. Eliot: * * * *
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet--and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
Prufrock/Other Observations |
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 Shadow out of Time by H. P. Lovecraft: He must, too, be placed on guard against a specific, lurking peril
which, though it will never engulf the whole race, may impose
monstrous and unguessable horrors upon certain venturesome members
of it.
It is for this latter reason that I urge, with all the
force of my being, final abandonment of all the attempts at unearthing
those fragments of unknown, primordial masonry which my expedition
set out to investigate.
Assuming that I was sane and awake,
my experience on that night was such as has befallen no man before.
It was, moreover, a frightful confirmation of all I had sought
Shadow out of Time |
