| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain: sign dat you gwyne to be rich bymeby."
"Have you got hairy arms and a hairy breast,
Jim?"
"What's de use to ax dat question? Don't you
see I has?"
"Well, are you rich?"
"No, but I ben rich wunst, and gwyne to be rich
agin. Wunst I had foteen dollars, but I tuck to
specalat'n', en got busted out."
"What did you speculate in, Jim?"
"Well, fust I tackled stock."
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn |
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: Blakeney's inane and mirthless laugh. Chauvelin stood beside her, his
shrewd, pale, yellow eyes fixed on the pretty face, which looked so
sweet and childlike in this soft English summer twilight.
"You surprise me, citoyenne," he said quietly, as he took a
pinch of snuff.
"Do I now?" she retorted gaily. "Faith, my little Chauvelin,
I should have thought that, with your penetration, you would have
guessed that an atmosphere composed of fogs and virtues would never
suit Marguerite St. Just."
"Dear me! is it as bad as that?" he asked, in mock consternation.
"Quite," she retorted, "and worse."
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 Economist by Xenophon: with her, when she was not quite fifteen[6] at the time she wedded me,
and during the whole prior period of her life had been most carefully
brought up[7] to see and hear as little as possible, and to ask[8] the
fewest questions? or do you not think one should be satisfied, if at
marriage her whole experience consisted in knowing how to take the
wool and make a dress, and seeing how her mother's handmaidens had
their daily spinning-tasks assigned them? For (he added), as regards
control of appetite and self-indulgence,[9] she had received the
soundest education, and that I take to be the most important matter in
the bringing-up of man or woman.
[6] See Aristot. "Pol." vii. 16. 1335(a). See Newman, op. cit. i. 170
|
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 Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft: an evil reputation along the waterfront, It was owned by a curious
group of half-castes whose frequent meetings and night trips to
the woods attracted no little curiosity; and it had set sail in
great haste just after the storm and earth tremors of March 1st.
Our Auckland correspondent gives the Emma and her crew an excellent
reputation, and Johansen is described as a sober and worthy man.
The admiralty will institute an inquiry on the whole matter beginning
tomorrow, at which every effort will be made to induce Johansen
to speak more freely than he has done hitherto.
This was all,
together with the picture of the hellish image; but what a train
Call of Cthulhu |
