| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Herbert West: Reanimator by H. P. Lovecraft: now if it could have been other than a daemoniac dream of delirium.
West had a private laboratory in an east room of the barn-like
temporary edifice, assigned him on his plea that he was devising
new and radical methods for the treatment of hitherto hopeless
cases of maiming. There he worked like a butcher in the midst
of his gory wares -- I could never get used to the levity with
which he handled and classified certain things. At times he actually
did perform marvels of surgery for the soldiers; but his chief
delights were of a less public and philanthropic kind, requiring
many explanations of sounds which seemed peculiar even amidst
that babel of the damned. Among these sounds were frequent revolver-shots
 Herbert West: Reanimator |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Pierrette by Honore de Balzac: "Don't help me, Monsieur Frappier," said the Breton, "I wish to do it
alone."
He passed the night in planing and fitting Pierrette's coffin, and
more than once his plane took off at a single pass a ribbon of wood
which was wet with tears. The good man Frappier smoked his pipe and
watched him silently, saying only, when the four pieces were joined
together,--
"Make the cover to slide; her poor grandmother will not hear the
nails."
At daybreak Brigaut went out to fetch the lead to line the coffin. By
a strange chance, the sheets of lead cost just the sum he had given
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