| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: is not so with us; on each and every such occasion our whole
fellowship of Christians falls back in disapproving wonder
and implicitly denies the saying. Christians! the farce is
impudently broad. Let us stand up in the sight of heaven and
confess. The ethics that we hold are those of Benjamin
Franklin. HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY, is perhaps a hard
saying; it is certainly one by which a wise man of these days
will not too curiously direct his steps; but I think it shows
a glimmer of meaning to even our most dimmed intelligences; I
think we perceive a principle behind it; I think, without
hyperbole, we are of the same mind that was in Benjamin
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Danny's Own Story by Don Marquis: their talk I couldn't help hearing, I guessed each
one was telling the other all that had happened
to him in the time that had passed by. Colonel
Tom what kind of a life he had lived, and how he had
married and his wife had died and left him a wid-
ower without any kids. And the doctor--it was
always hard fur me to get to calling him anything
but Doctor Kirby--how he had happened to start
out with a good chancet in life and turn into jest
a travelling fakir.
Well, I thinks to myself now that he has got to be
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tom Grogan by F. Hopkinson Smith: look up, lest some other eye might catch his own and read his
thoughts. If he had only seen Lathers come in!
Lathers's announcement, coupled with the Scotchman's well-known
knowledge of equine diseases discrediting the blind-staggers
theory, produced a profound sensation. Heads were put together,
and low whispers were heard. Dempsey, Quigg, and Crimmins did not
move a muscle.
The Scotchman again broke the silence.
"There seems to be no question, gentlemen, that the poor woman is
badly hurt; but she is still alive, and while she breathes we have
no right to take this work from her. It's not decent to serve a
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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 The Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft: there came some disjointed fragments evidently taken from the
Necronomicon, that monstrous blasphemy in quest of which the thing
had perished. These fragments, as Armitage recalls them, ran something
like 'N'gai, n'gha'ghaa, bugg-shoggog, y'hah: Yog-Sothoth, Yog-Sothoth
...' They trailed off into nothingness as the whippoorwills shrieked
in rhythmical crescendos of unholy anticipation.
Then came a
halt in the gasping, and the dog raised its head in a long, lugubrious
howl. A change came over the yellow, goatish face of the prostrate
thing, and the great black eyes fell in appallingly. Outside the
window the shrilling of the whippoorwills had suddenly ceased,
The Dunwich Horror |
