| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Whirligigs by O. Henry: land-shark.
"It has always been considered to extend to the river,"
he said, dryly.
"But that is not the point I desired to discuss," said the
Commissioner. "What kind of country is this valley
portion of (let us say, then) the Denny tract?"
The spirit of the Actual Settler beamed in Ashe's face.
"Beautiful," he said, with enthusiasm. "Valley as
level as this floor, with just a little swell on, like the sea,
and rich as cream. Just enough brakes to shelter the
cattle in winter. Black loamy soil for six feet, and then
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft: clearly disturbed Lake, for it argued the occasional existence
of prodigious gales, violent beyond anything we had so far encountered.
His camp lay a little more than five miles from where the higher
foothills rose abruptly. I could almost trace a note of subconscious
alarm in his words-flashed across a glacial void of seven hundred
miles - as he urged that we all hasten with the matter and get
the strange, new region disposed of as soon as possible. He was
about to rest now, after a continuous day’s work of almost unparalleled
speed, strenuousness, and results.
In the morning I had a three-cornered
wireless talk with Lake and Captain Douglas at their widely separated
At the Mountains of Madness |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Paz by Honore de Balzac: balmy; in it I breathed in more of life; I inhaled, as they say
persons do in the tropics, a vapor laden with creative principles.
"I MUST tell you these things to explain the strange presumption
of my involuntary thoughts,--I would have died rather than avow it
until now.
"You will remember those few days of curiosity when you wished to
know the man who performed the household miracles you had
sometimes noticed. I thought,--forgive me, madame,--I believed you
might love me. Your good-will, your glances interpreted by me, a
lover, seemed to me so dangerous--for me--that I invented that
story of Malaga, knowing it was the sort of liaison which women
|
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 Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: No sense of fear influenced her decision, for fear is
seldom known to the children of Mars. It was rather a
sense of the responsibility that she, the daughter of their
jeddak, felt for the welfare of her father's people.
"I called you, Padwar," she said to the lieutenant of
the guard, "to protect the person of your princess,
and to keep the peace that must not be violated within the
royal gardens of the jeddak. That is all. You will escort
me to the palace, and the Prince of Helium will accompany me."
Without another glance in the direction of Astok she
turned, and taking Carthoris' proffered hand, moved
Thuvia, Maid of Mars |
