| 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: too, the natives are mortally afraid of the numerous whippoorwills
which grow vocal on warm nights. It is vowed that the birds are
psychopomps lying in wait for the souls of the dying, and that
they time their eerie cries in unison with the sufferer's struggling
breath. If they can catch the fleeing soul when it leaves the
body, they instantly flutter away chittering in daemoniac laughter;
but if they fail, they subside gradually into a disappointed silence.
These tales, of course, are obsolete and ridiculous; because
they come down from very old times. Dunwich is indeed ridiculously
old - older by far than any of the communities within thirty miles
of it. South of the village one may still spy the cellar walls
 The Dunwich Horror |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Sportsman by Xenophon: conjuncture the hounds will press hard upon him, while their masters
had best keep a narrow eye upon the boar and let fly their javelins
and a pelt of stones, being planted in a ring behind him and a good
way off, until the instant when with a forward heave of his body he
stretches the net tight and strains the skirting-rope. Thereupon he
who is most skilful of the company and of the stoutest nerve will
advance from the front and deliver a home thrust with his hunting-
spear.
[23] Or, "a pretty chase must follow."
[24] Or, "if within the prison of the net the ground be sloping, it
will not take long to make him spring up; he will be up again on
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