| 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: leave only such an added sensitiveness that memory reinspires
all the original horror. We saw, as I have said, certain obstructions
on the polished floor ahead; and I may add that our nostrils were
assailed almost simultaneously by a very curious intensification
of the strange prevailing fetor, now quite plainly mixed with
the nameless stench of those others which had gone before. The
light of the second torch left no doubt of what the obstructions
were, and we dared approach them only because we could see, even
from a distance, that they were quite as past all harming power
as had been the six similar specimens unearthed from the monstrous
star-mounded graves at poor Lake’s camp.
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 The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: Try and forget you have been kicked."
"Oh, dear," said Tom, wretchedly, "it's not that, Pudd'nhead--
it's not that.. It's a thousand times worse than that--oh, yes,
a million times worse."
"Why, Tom, what do you mean? Has Rowena--"
"Flung me? _No_, but the old man has."
Wilson said to himself, "Aha!" and thought of the mysterious girl
in the bedroom. "The Driscolls have been making discoveries!"
Then he said aloud, gravely:
"Tom, there are some kinds of dissipation which--"
"Oh, shucks, this hasn't got anything to do with dissipation.
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