| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: knowledge of truth, than I might, perhaps, have made had I been engaged in
the perusal of books merely, or in holding converse with men of letters.
These nine years passed away, however, before I had come to any
determinate judgment respecting the difficulties which form matter of
dispute among the learned, or had commenced to seek the principles of any
philosophy more certain than the vulgar. And the examples of many men of
the highest genius, who had, in former times, engaged in this inquiry,
but, as appeared to me, without success, led me to imagine it to be a work
of so much difficulty, that I would not perhaps have ventured on it so
soon had I not heard it currently rumored that I had already completed
the inquiry. I know not what were the grounds of this opinion; and, if my
Reason Discourse |
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 At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft: rich in decadently elaborate and apparently ritualistic sculptures
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
At the Mountains of Madness |
