| 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: forms, of course, were mechanically exterminated. It interested
us to see in some of the very last and most decadent sculptures
a shambling, primitive mammal, used sometimes for food and sometimes
as an amusing buffoon by the land dwellers, whose vaguely simian
and human foreshadowings were unmistakable. In the building of
land cities the huge stone blocks of the high towers were generally
lifted by vast-winged pterodactyls of a species heretofore unknown
to paleontology.
The persistence with which the Old Ones survived
various geologic changes and convulsions of the earth’s crust
was little short of miraculous. Though few or none of their first
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 Heart of the West by O. Henry: 'You're short on credentials for asking that question, Mr. Peters.
Suppose you do a forty-nine day fast, just to give you ground to stand
on, and then maybe I'll answer it.'
"So, even after Collier was kidnapped out of the way by the revolt of
his appetite, my own prospects with Mame didn't seem to be improved.
And then business played out in Guthrie.
"I had stayed too long there. The Brazilians I had sold commenced to
show signs of wear, and the Kindler refused to light up right frequent
on wet mornings. There is always a time, in my business, when the star
of success says, 'Move on to the next town.' I was travelling by wagon
at that time so as not to miss any of the small towns; so I hitched up
Heart of the West |
