| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Betty Zane by Zane Grey: speak them. I love you. I have loved you from the very first moment, that
blessed moment when I looked up over your pony's head to see the sweetest face
the sun ever shone on. I'll be the happiest man on earth if you will say you
care a little for me and promise to be my wife.
"It was wrong to kiss you and I beg your forgiveness. Could you but see your
face as I saw it last night in the moonlight, I would not need to plead: you
would know that the impulse which swayed me was irresistible. In that kiss I
gave you my hope, my love, my life, my all. Let it plead for me.
"I expect to return from Ft. Pitt in about six or eight weeks, but I cannot
wait until then for your answer.
"With hope I sign myself,
Betty Zane |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Long Odds by H. Rider Haggard: he would be on me. I took comfort, however, from the reflection that a
lion rarely attacks a man--rarely, I say; sometimes he does, as you will
see--unless he is cornered or wounded. I must have been nearly an hour
hunting after that lion. Once I thought I saw something move in a clump
of tambouki grass, but I could not be sure, and when I trod out the
grass I could not find him.
"At last I worked up to the head of the kloof, which made a cul-de-sac.
It was formed of a wall of rock about fifty feet high. Down this rock
trickled a little waterfall, and in front of it, some seventy feet from
its face, rose a great piled-up mass of boulders, in the crevices and on
the top of which grew ferns, grasses, and stunted bushes. This mass was
Long Odds |
| 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: of late workmanship - when, shortly before 8:30 P.M., Danforth’s
keen young nostrils gave us the first hint of something unusual.
If we had had a dog with us, I suppose we would have been warned
before. At first we could not precisely say what was wrong with
the formerly crystal-pure air, but after a few seconds our memories
reacted only too definitely. Let me try to state the thing without
flinching. There was an odor - and that odor was vaguely, subtly,
and unmistakably akin to what had nauseated us upon opening the
insane grave of the horror poor Lake had dissected.
Of course
the revelation was not as clearly cut at the time as it sounds
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 The Mayflower Compact: all due Submission and Obedience.
In Witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names
at Cape Cod the eleventh of November, in the Raigne of our
Sovereigne Lord, King James of England, France, and Ireland,
the eighteenth, and of Scotland, the fiftie-fourth,
Anno. Domini, 1620.
Mr. John Carver Mr. Stephen Hopkins
Mr. William Bradford Digery Priest
Mr. Edward Winslow Thomas Williams
Mr. William Brewster Gilbert Winslow
Isaac Allerton Edmund Margesson
|
