| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H. P. Lovecraft: plaza was a pair of winged colossal lions guarding the top of
a subterrene staircase. Again and again were those huge winged
lions shewn, their mighty flanks of diarite glistening in the
grey twilight of the day and the cloudy phosphorescence of the
night. And as Carter stumbled past their frequent and repeated
pictures it came to him at last what indeed they were, and what
city it was that the almost-humans had ruled so anciently before
the coming of the black galleys. There could be no mistake, for
the legends of dreamland are generous and profuse. Indubitably
that primal city was no less a place than storied Sarkomand, whose
ruins had bleached for a million years before the first true human
 The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Market-Place by Harold Frederic: the nigger was from San Domingo, and he was forever
bragging about the San Domingo peppers, and saying those
on the mainland hadn't enough strength to make a baby
wrinkle his nose, and you found a pepper coming through
the swamp, and you tipped me the wink, and you handed
that pepper to the nigger, and it damned near killed him.
Hell! You must remember that!"
"That would have been the Chavica pertusum," said Gafferson,
thoughtfully. He seemed to rouse himself to an interest in
the story itself with some difficulty. "Yes--I remember it,"
he admitted, finally. "I shouldn't have known you though.
 The Market-Place |