| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft: and the brooding peaks of the great mountains showing beyond the
more crumbled structures toward the east. The low antarctic sun
of midnight peered redly from the southern horizon through rifts
in the jagged ruins, and the terrible age and deadness of the
nightmare city seemed all the starker by contrast with such relatively
known and accustomed things as the features of the polar landscape.
The sky above was a churning and opalescent mass of tenuous ice-vapors,
and the cold clutched at our vitals. Wearily resting the outfit-bags
to which we had instinctively clung throughout our desperate flight,
we rebuttoned our heavy garments for the stumbling climb down
the mound and the walk through the aeon-old stone maze to the
At the Mountains of Madness |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Glinda of Oz by L. Frank Baum: only intent on admiring her own beauty.
"Truly," said Ervic, in a gloomy voice, "the
Flatheads have conquered us!"
* * * * * * * *
Some of these events had been witnessed by Ozma
and Dorothy and Lady Aurex, who had left the house
and gone close to the glass of the dome, in order to see
what was going on. Many of the Skeezers had also
crowded against the dome, wondering what would
happen next. Although their vision was to an extent
blurred by the water and the necessity of looking
Glinda of Oz |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Rezanov by Gertrude Atherton: I say? It is unforgettable. There are few books
of American origin that resist so well the passing
of the years, that take on more steadily the glam-
our of "the unimaginable touch of time." "Rez-
anov" is a classic, or I miss my guess. This, though
it was first published so recently as 1906.
The story has the merit of being, to some extent
historically, and wholly artistically, true. For the
matter-of-facts Mrs. Atherton provides a bibliog-
raphy of her authorities. Those authorities I
have not read, nor should others. Sufficient unto
Rezanov |
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 Profits of Religion by Upton Sinclair: been driven to a more or less reluctant alliance with the Papacy.
The Church is here, and her followers are here, before the war
several hundred thousand of them pouring into the country every
year. It is no longer possible to do without Catholics in
America; not merely do ditches have to be dug, roads graded, coal
mined, and dishes washed, but franchises have to be granted,
tariff-schedules adjusted, juries and courts manipulated, police
trained and strikes crushed. Under our native political system,
for these purposes millions of votes are needed; and these votes
belong to people of a score of nationalities--Irish and German
and Italian and French-Canadian and Bohemian and Mexican and
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