| 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: to show the right one. Courage and confidence were mounting, though
the twilight of the almost perpendicular wooded hill which lay
towards the end of their short cut, and among whose fantastic
ancient trees they had to scramble as if up a ladder, put these
qualities to a severe test.
At length they emerged on a muddy
road to find the sun coming out. They were a little beyond the
Seth Bishop place, but bent trees and hideously unmistakable tracks
showed what had passed by. Only a few moments were consumed in
surveying the ruins just round the bend. It was the Frye incident
all over again, and nothing dead or living was found in either
The Dunwich Horror |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Master and Man by Leo Tolstoy: the side and the travellers steered against it, it tilted the
sledges and turned the horses to one side. Petrushka drove his
good mare in front at a brisk trot and kept shouting lustily.
Mukhorty pressed after her.
After travelling so for about ten minutes, Petrushka turned
round and shouted something. Neither Vasili Andreevich nor
Nikita could hear anything because of the wind, but they
guessed that they had arrived at the turning. In fact
Petrushka had turned to the right, and now the wind that had
blown from the side blew straight in their faces, and through
the snow they saw something dark on their right. It was the
Master and Man |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: This thing is demanded by the realists among us. I am a realist.
Tario is an etherealist.
"The etherealists maintain that there is no such thing
as matter--that all is mind. They say that none of us exists,
except in the imagination of his fellows, other than as an
intangible, invisible mentality.
"According to Tario, it is but necessary that we all
unite in imagining that there are no dead Torquasians
beneath our walls, and there will be none, nor any need
of scavenging banths."
"You, then, do not hold Tario's beliefs?" asked Carthoris.
Thuvia, Maid of Mars |
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 Heroes by Charles Kingsley: face the long seas again, and the Bosphorus, and the stormy
Euxine, and double all your toil? There is many a fair land
round these coasts, which waits for gallant men like you.
Better to settle there, and build a city, and let Aietes and
Colchis help themselves.'
Then a murmur rose among the Colchi, and some cried 'He has
spoken well;' and some, 'We have had enough of roving, we
will sail the seas no more!' And the chief said at last, 'Be
it so, then; a plague she has been to us, and a plague to the
house of her father, and a plague she will be to you. Take
her, since you are no wiser; and we will sail away toward the
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