| 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: the archway and turned both our torches on the indifferent and
unheeding group of three, we saw that they were all eyeless albinos
of the same unknown and gigantic species. Their size reminded
us of some of the archaic penguins depicted in the Old Ones’ sculptures,
and it did not take us long to conclude that they were descended
from the same stock-undoubtedly surviving through a retreat to
some warmer inner region whose perpetual blackness had destroyed
their pigmentation and atrophied their eyes to mere useless slits.
That their present habitat was the vast abyss we sought, was not
for a moment to be doubted; and this evidence of the gulf’s continued
warmth and habitability filled us with the most curious and subtly
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 Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: long way for a tired man to walk down every evening with the sole
purpose of joining in family worship; and the road through the bush
was dark, and, to the Samoan imagination, beset with supernatural
terrors. Wherefore, as soon as our household had fallen into a
regular routine, and the bonds of Samoan family life began to draw
us more closely together, Tusitala felt the necessity of including
our retainers in our evening devotions. I suppose ours was the
only white man's family in all Samoa, except those of the
missionaries, where the day naturally ended with this homely,
patriarchal custom. Not only were the religious scruples of the
natives satisfied, but, what we did not foresee, our own
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