| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft: those of Rome the wolf and the eagle, and those of various savage
tribes some chosen totem animal. But this lone refuge was now
stripped from us, and we were forced to face definitely the reason-shaking
realization which the reader of these pages has doubtless long
ago anticipated. I can scarcely bear to write it down in black
and white even now, but perhaps that will not be necessary.
The
things once rearing and dwelling in this frightful masonry in
the age of dinosaurs were not indeed dinosaurs, but far worse.
Mere dinosaurs were new and almost brainless objects - but the
builders of the city were wise and old, and had left certain traces
 At the Mountains of Madness |
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 Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: child," and Lamartine, and Sir Walter Scott, and Byron. The noble
creature regarded her love as a stimulating power; the desire which
she had kindled in Lucien should give him the energy to win glory for
himself. This feminine Quixotry is a sentiment which hallows love and
turns it to worthy uses; it exalts and reverences love. Mme. de
Bargeton having made up her mind to play the part of Dulcinea in
Lucien's life for seven or eight years to come, desired, like many
other provincials, to give herself as the reward of prolonged service,
a trial of constancy which should give her time to judge her lover.
Lucien began the strife by a piece of vehement petulence, at which a
woman laughs so long as she is heart-free, and saddens only when she
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