| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft: and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling
in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways
to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the
earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom. Meanwhile
the cult, by appropriate rites, must keep alive the memory of
those ancient ways and shadow forth the prophecy of their return.
In the elder time chosen men had talked with the entombed Old
Ones in dreams, but then something happened. The great stone city
R'lyeh, with its monoliths and sepulchres, had sunk beneath the
waves; and the deep waters, full of the one primal mystery through
which not even thought can pass, had cut off the spectral intercourse.
Call of Cthulhu |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Verses 1889-1896 by Rudyard Kipling: But the third are black with clinkered sin that cannot burn again:
They may hold their path, they may leave their path,
with never a soul to mark,
They may burn or freeze, but they must not cease
in the Scorn of the Outer Dark.
The Wind that blows between the worlds, it nipped him to the bone,
And he yearned to the flare of Hell-Gate
there as the light of his own hearth-stone.
The Devil he sat behind the bars, where the desperate legions drew,
But he caught the hasting Tomlinson and would not let him through.
"Wot ye the price of good pit-coal that I must pay?" said he,
Verses 1889-1896 |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Damaged Goods by Upton Sinclair: the public health?"
"My dear Doctor," responded Monsieur Loches, "you fall into the
French habit of considering the government as the cause of all
evils. Show us the way, you learned gentlemen! Since that is a
matter about which you are informed, and we are ignorant, begin
by telling us what measures you believe to be necessary."
"Ah, ah!" exclaimed the other. "That's fine, indeed! It was
about eighteen years ago that a project of that nature, worked
out by the Academy of Medicine, and approved by it UNANIMOUSLY,
was sent to the proper minister. We have not yet heard his
reply."
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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 Lucile by Owen Meredith: She rose
And swept to the door, like that phantom the snows
Feel at nightfall sweep o'er them, when daylight is gone,
And Caucasus is with the moon all alone.
There she paused; and, as though from immeasurable,
Insurpassable distance, she murmur'd--
"Farewell!
We, alas! have mistaken each other. Once more
Illusion, to-night, in my lifetime is o'er.
Duc de Luvois, adieu!"
From the heart-breaking gloom
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