| 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: III. The Madness from the
Sea
If heaven ever wishes to grant me a boon, it will be a total
effacing of the results of a mere chance which fixed my eye on
a certain stray piece of shelf-paper. It was nothing on which
I would naturally have stumbled in the course of my daily round,
for it was an old number of an Australian journal, the Sydney
Bulletin for April 18, 1925. It had escaped even the cutting bureau
which had at the time of its issuance been avidly collecting material
for my uncle's research.
I had largely given over my inquiries
Call of Cthulhu |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: school-teaching, agriculture, the publication of a paper, and so
forth.
IVÁN SERGÉYEVITCH three times visited Yásnaya
Polyána within my memory, in: August and September, 1878,
and the third and last time at the beginning of May, 1880. I can
remember all these visits, although it is quite possible that
some details have escaped me.
I remember that when we expected Turgénieff on his
first visit, it was a great occasion, and the most anxious and
excited of all the household about it was my mother. She told us
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Complete Poems of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: To build the Universal Church,
Lofty as in the love of God,
And ample as the wants of man.
A Poet, too, was there, whose verse
Was tender, musical, and terse;
The inspiration, the delight,
The gleam, the glory, the swift flight,
Of thoughts so sudden, that they seem
The revelations of a dream,
All these were his; but with them came
No envy of another's fame;
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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 The Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: the painful, melancholy smile of an insane man who suddenly recovers
for a time a fleeting gleam of reason. That smile was assuredly not
the smile of a murderer. When I saw the jailer I questioned him about
his new prisoner.
"He has not spoken since I put him in his cell," answered the man. "He
is sitting down with his head in his hands and is either sleeping or
reflecting about his crime. The French say he'll get his reckoning to-
morrow morning and be shot in twenty-four hours."
That evening I stopped short under the window of the prison during the
short time I was allowed to take exercise in the prison yard. We
talked together, and he frankly related to me his strange affair,
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