| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ursula by Honore de Balzac: pillaging the house before my death, and I have no monkey to revive
me. Go and tell them I will have none of them in my house."
The priest and the doctor of the town went downstairs and repeated the
message of the dying man, adding, in their indignation, strong words
of their own.
"Madame Bougival," said the doctor, "close the iron gate and allow no
one to enter; even the dying, it seems, can have no peace. Prepare
mustard poultices and apply them to the soles of Monsieur's feet."
"Your uncle is not dead," said the abbe, "and he may live some time
longer. He wishes for absolute silence, and no one beside him but his
niece. What a difference between the conduct of that young girl and
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy: knees again, whilst something was wound round her mouth to prevent her
uttering a scream.
Bewildered, half frantic with the bitterness of disappointment,
she looked round her helplessly, and, bending down quite close to her,
she saw through the mist, which seemed to gather round her, a pair of keen,
malicious eyes, which appeared to her excited brain to have a weird,
supernatural green light in them. She lay in the shadow of a great boulder;
Chauvelin could not see her features, but he passed his thin, white fingers
over her face.
"A woman!" he whispered, "by all the Saints in the calendar."
"We cannot let her loose, that's certain," he muttered to himself.
The Scarlet Pimpernel |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft: by.
'Gawd,' he gasped, 'I telled 'em not ter go daown into the
glen, an' I never thought nobody'd dew it with them tracks an'
that smell an' the whippoorwills a-screechin' daown thar in the
dark o' noonday...'
A cold shudder ran through natives and visitors
alike, and every ear seemed strained in a kind of instinctive,
unconscious listening. Armitage, now that he had actually come
upon the horror and its monstrous work, trembled with the responsibility
he felt to be his. Night would soon fall, and it was then that
the mountainous blasphemy lumbered upon its eldritch course. Negotium
The Dunwich Horror |
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 End of the Tether by Joseph Conrad: the whole file in a sort of sustained rush; the features
of the occupant whirling out of sight left behind an
impression of fixed stares and impassive vacancy; and
after it had vanished in full flight as it were, notwith-
standing the long line of vehicles hugging the curb at
a walk, the whole lofty vista of the avenue seemed to lie
open and emptied of life in the enlarged impression of
an august solitude.
Captain Whalley had lifted his head to look, and his
mind, disturbed in its meditation, turned with wonder
(as men's minds will do) to matters of no importance.
End of the Tether |
