| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft: sudden start that a loud chorus of whippoorwills among the shrubbery
had commenced a damnably rhythmical piping, as if in unison with
the last breaths of a dying man.
The building was full of a
frightful stench which Dr Armitage knew too well, and the three
men rushed across the hall to the small genealogical reading-room
whence the low whining came. For a second nobody dared to turn
on the light, then Armitage summoned up his courage and snapped
the switch. One of the three - it is not certain which - shrieked
aloud at what sprawled before them among disordered tables and
overturned chairs. Professor Rice declares that he wholly lost
The Dunwich Horror |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Land that Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs: the same boat that sunk us yesterday."
"It is," I replied. "I know her well. I helped design her and
took her out on her first run."
The girl drew back from me with a little exclamation of surprise
and disappointment. "I thought you were an American," she said.
"I had no idea you were a--a--"
"Nor am I," I replied. "Americans have been building submarines
for all nations for many years. I wish, though, that we had gone
bankrupt, my father and I, before ever we turned out that
Frankenstein of a thing."
We were approaching the U-boat at half speed now, and I could
The Land that Time Forgot |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: world, and as much farther as he might think it best to go.
Many of these brave fellows had been educated by Chiron, the
four-footed pedagogue, and were therefore old schoolmates of
Jason, and knew him to be a lad of spirit. The mighty Hercules,
whose shoulders afterwards upheld the sky, was one of them. And
there were Castor and Pollux, the twin brothers, who were never
accused of being chicken-hearted, although they had been
hatched out of an egg; and Theseus, who was so renowned for
killing the Minotaur, and Lynceus, with his wonderfully sharp
eyes, which could see through a millstone, or look right down
into the depths of the earth, and discover the treasures that
Tanglewood Tales |
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 The Outlaw of Torn by Edgar Rice Burroughs: of finery, Red Shandy, " continued Father Claude, as
he locked his arm in that of the outlaw and proceeded
toward the castle.
"One garment was all that Norman of Torn would
permit him, and as the sun was hot overhead he se-
lected for the Bishop a bassinet for that single article
of apparel, to protect his tonsured pate from the rays
of old sol. Then fearing that it might be stolen from
him by some vandals of the road he had One Eye
Kanty rivet it at each side of the gorget so that it
could not be removed by other than a smithy, and
The Outlaw of Torn |
