| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic: note in the invitation to sit down and share the meal,
Theron did not catch it. He frankly displayed his pleasure
as he laid aside his hat, and took the chair opposite his host.
"It is really only a few months since I was here,
in this room, before," he remarked, as the priest closed
his book and tossed it to one side, and the housekeeper came
in to lay another place. "Yet it might have been years,
many long years, so tremendous is the difference
that the lapse of time has wrought in me."
"I am afraid we have nothing to tempt you very much,
Mr. Ware," remarked Father Forbes, with a gesture of his
The Damnation of Theron Ware |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Hamlet by William Shakespeare: Rosin. Good my Lord, what is your cause of distemper?
You do freely barre the doore of your owne Libertie,
if you deny your greefes to your Friend
Ham. Sir I lacke Aduancement
Rosin. How can that be, when you haue the voyce of
the King himselfe, for your Succession in Denmarke?
Ham. I, but while the grasse growes, the Prouerbe is
something musty.
Enter one with a Recorder.
O the Recorder. Let me see, to withdraw with you, why
do you go about to recouer the winde of mee, as if you
Hamlet |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: thought by the voice with verbs and nouns, imaging an opinion in the stream
which flows from the lips, as in a mirror or water. Does not explanation
appear to be of this nature?
THEAETETUS: Certainly; he who so manifests his thought, is said to explain
himself.
SOCRATES: And every one who is not born deaf or dumb is able sooner or
later to manifest what he thinks of anything; and if so, all those who have
a right opinion about anything will also have right explanation; nor will
right opinion be anywhere found to exist apart from knowledge.
THEAETETUS: True.
SOCRATES: Let us not, therefore, hastily charge him who gave this account
|
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 At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft: the camp being almost wholly destroyed. The wind may have done
that, though the greater breakage on the side next the camp, which
was not the windward one, suggests an outward leap or break of
the frantic beasts themselves. All three sledges were gone, and
we have tried to explain that the wind may have blown them off
into the unknown. The drill and ice-melting machinery at the boring
were too badly damaged to warrant salvage, so we used them to
choke up that subtly disturbing gateway to the past which Lake
had blasted. We likewise left at the camp the two most shaken
up of the planes; since our surviving party had only four real
pilots - Sherman, Danforth, McTighe, and Ropes - in all, with
At the Mountains of Madness |
