| 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: temporary shadow, the effect was subtly menacing in a way I can
never hope to depict. Even the faint howling and piping of the
unfelt wind in the great mountain passes behind us took on a wilder
note of purposeful malignity. The last stage of our descent to
the town was unusually steep and abrupt, and a rock outcropping
at the edge where the grade changed led us to think that an artificial
terrace had once existed there. Under the glaciation, we believed,
there must be a flight of steps or its equivalent.
When at last
we plunged into the town itself, clambering over fallen masonry
and shrinking from the oppressive nearness and dwarfing height
 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 Poems of William Blake by William Blake: Nothing remains; O maid I tell thee, when I pass away.
It is to tenfold life, to love, to peace, and raptures holy:
Unseen descending, weigh my light wings upon balmy flowers:
And court the fair eyed dew, to take me to her shining tent
The weeping virgin, trembling kneels before the risen sun.
Till we arise link'd in a golden band and never part:
But walk united bearing food to all our tender flowers.
Dost thou O little cloud? I fear that I am not like thee:
For I walk through the vales of Har, and smell the sweetest flowers:
But I feed not the little flowers: I hear the warbling birds,
But I feed not the warbling birds, they fly and seek their food:
 Poems of William Blake |