| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson: gang back to North Berwick, and let you bide here and keep an eye on
Thon. If I cannae find Lapraik, I'll join ye and the twa of us'll have
a crack wi' him. But if Lapraik's at hame, I'll rin up the flag at the
harbour, and ye can try Thon Thing wi' the gun."
Aweel, so it was agreed between them twa. I was just a bairn, an' clum
in Sandie's boat, whaur I thoucht I would see the best of the employ.
My grandsire gied Sandie a siller tester to pit in his gun wi' the leid
draps, bein mair deidly again bogles. And then the as boat set aff for
North Berwick, an' the tither lay whaur it was and watched the
wanchancy thing on the brae-side.
A' the time we lay there it lowped and flang and capered and span like
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft: species, or even hint at its remotest affiliations.
Above these
apparent hieroglyphics was a figure of evident pictorial intent,
though its impressionistic execution forbade a very clear idea
of its nature. It seemed to be a sort of monster, or symbol representing
a monster, of a form which only a diseased fancy could conceive.
If I say that my somewhat extravagant imagination yielded simultaneous
pictures of an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature, I shall
not be unfaithful to the spirit of the thing. A pulpy, tentacled
head surmounted a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings;
but it was the general outline of the whole which made it most
Call of Cthulhu |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley: floor below: till if it dripped long enough, the stalactite
hanging from above would meet the stalagmite rising from below,
and join in one straight round white graceful shaft, which would
seem (but only seem) to support the roof of the cave. And out of
that cave--though not always out of the mouth of it--will run a
stream of water, which seems to you clear as crystal, though it is
actually, like the Itchen at Winchester, full of lime; so full of
lime, that it makes beds of fresh limestone, which are called
travertine--which you may see in Italy, and Greece, and Asia
Minor: or perhaps it petrifies, as you call it, the weeds in its
bed, like that dropping-well at Knaresborough, of which you have
|
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 On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau: but not published. I was shown quite a long list of young
men who had been detected in an attempt to escape, who
avenged themselves by singing them.
I pumped my fellow-prisoner as dry as I could, for fear
I should never see him again; but at length he showed me
which was my bed, and left me to blow out the lamp.
It was like travelling into a far country, such as I
had never expected to behold, to lie there for one night.
It seemed to me that I never had heard the town clock strike
before, not the evening sounds of the village; for we slept
with the windows open, which were inside the grating. It
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience |
