| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Shadow out of Time by H. P. Lovecraft: dust were not as even as it ought to be - there were places where
it looked thinner, as if it had been disturbed not many months
before. I could not be sure, for even the apparently thinner places
were dusty enough; yet a certain suspicion of regularity in the
fancied unevenness was highly disquieting.
When I brought the
torchlight close to one of the queer places I did not like what
I saw - for the illusion of regularity became very great. It was
as if there were regular lines of composite impressions - impressions
that went in threes, each slightly over a foot square, and consisting
of five nearly circular three-inch prints, one in advance of the
Shadow out of Time |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx: best; and bourgeois Socialism develops this comfortable
conception into various more or less complete systems. In
requiring the proletariat to carry out such a system, and thereby
to march straightway into the social New Jerusalem, it but
requires in reality, that the proletariat should remain within
the bounds of existing society, but should cast away all its
hateful ideas concerning the bourgeoisie.
A second and more practical, but less systematic, form of this
Socialism sought to depreciate every revolutionary movement in
the eyes of the working class, by showing that no mere political
reform, but only a change in the material conditions of
The Communist Manifesto |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne: her principle, but I was sure it could not be her interest to level
the outworks, without which I could not conceive how such a citadel
as hers could be defended; - that there was not a more dangerous
thing in the world than for a beauty to be a deist; - that it was a
debt I owed my creed not to conceal it from her; - that I had not
been five minutes sat upon the sofa beside her, but I had begun to
form designs; - and what is it, but the sentiments of religion, and
the persuasion they had excited in her breast, which could have
check'd them as they rose up?
We are not adamant, said I, taking hold of her hand; - and there is
need of all restraints, till age in her own time steals in and lays
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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 Lin McLean by Owen Wister: serene and careless of vagrants, and in his words only the ordinary
voice of banter spoke to the Governor. A good woman, it may well be,
would have guessed before this the sensitive soul in the blundering body,
but Barker saw just the familiar, whimsical, happy-go-lucky McLean of old
days, and so he went gayly and innocently on, treading upon holy ground.
"I've got it!" he exclaimed; "give your wife something."
The ruddy cow-puncher grinned. He had passed through the world of woman
with but few delays, rejoicing in informal and transient entanglements,
and he welcomed the turn which the conversation seemed now to be taking.
"If you'll give me her name and address," said he, with the future
entirely in his mind.
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