| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft: separate and apart, its very material was a mystery; for the soapy,
greenish-black stone with its golden or iridescent flecks and
striations resembled nothing familiar to geology or mineralogy.
The characters along the base were equally baffling; and no member
present, despite a representation of half the world's expert learning
in this field, could form the least notion of even their remotest
linguistic kinship. They, like the subject and material, belonged
to something horribly remote and distinct from mankind as we know
it. something frightfully suggestive of old and unhallowed cycles
of life in which our world and our conceptions have no part.
And
Call of Cthulhu |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs: "And we are making seven miles an hour," I concluded
for him, as I sat with my eyes upon the distance meter.
"How thick is the Earth's crust, Perry?" I asked.
"There are almost as many conjectures as to that as there
are geologists," was his answer. "One estimates it
thirty miles, because the internal heat, increasing at
the rate of about one degree to each sixty to seventy
feet depth, would be sufficient to fuse the most refractory
substances at that distance beneath the surface.
Another finds that the phenomena of precession and
nutation require that the earth, if not entirely solid,
At the Earth's Core |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Mrs. Warren's Profession by George Bernard Shaw: VIVIE. At Honoria Fraser's chambers, 67 Chancery Lane, for the
rest of my life. [She goes off quickly in the opposite direction
to that taken by Crofts].
FRANK. But I say--wait--dash it! [He runs after her].
ACT IV
[Honoria Fraser's chambers in Chancery Lane. An office at the
top of New Stone Buildings, with a plate-glass window,
distempered walls, electric light, and a patent stove. Saturday
afternoon. The chimneys of Lincoln's Inn and the western sky
beyond are seen through the window. There is a double writing
table in the middle of the room, with a cigar box, ash pans, and
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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 Concerning Christian Liberty by Martin Luther: ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and
descending upon the Son of man" (John i. 51).
Thus much concerning liberty, which, as you see, is a true and
spiritual liberty, making our hearts free from all sins, laws,
and commandments, as Paul says, "The law is not made for a
righteous man" (1 Tim. i. 9), and one which surpasses all other
external liberties, as far as heaven is above earth. May Christ
make us to understand and preserve this liberty. Amen.
Finally, for the sake of those to whom nothing can be stated so
well but that they misunderstand and distort it, we must add a
word, in case they can understand even that. There are very many
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