| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H. P. Lovecraft: the creature into a capacious burrow and crawled after him for
hours in the blackness of rank mould. They emerged on a dim plain
strewn with singular relics of earth - old gravestones, broken
urns, and grotesque fragments of monuments - and Carter realised
with some emotion that he was probably nearer the waking world
than at any other time since he had gone down the seven hundred
steps from the cavern of flame to the Gate of Deeper Slumber.
There, on a tombstone of 1768 stolen from the Granary Burying
Ground in Boston, sat a ghoul which was once the artist Richard
Upton Pickman. It was naked and rubbery, and had acquired so much
of the ghoulish physiognomy that its human origin was already
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Little Britain by Washington Irving: many smaller houses, not on so grand a scale, but, like your
small ancient gentry, sturdily maintaining their claims to equal
antiquity. These have their gable ends to the street; great bow-
windows, with diamond panes set in lead, grotesque carvings,
and low arched door-ways.
In this most venerable and sheltered little nest have I passed
several quiet years of existence, comfortably lodged in the
second floor of one of the smallest but oldest edifices. My
sitting-room is an old wainscoted chamber, with small panels,
and set off with a miscellaneous array of furniture. I have a
particular respect for three or four high-backed claw-footed
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