| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: one another, living as they do in a common centre, you must have met
with several resembling Monsieur Rabourdin, whose acquaintance we are
about to make at a moment when he is head of a bureau in one of our
most important ministries. At this period he was forty years old, with
gray hair of so pleasing a shade that women might at a pinch fall in
love with it for it softened a somewhat melancholy countenance, blue
eyes full of fire, a skin that was still fair, though rather ruddy and
touched here and there with strong red marks; a forehead and nose a la
Louis XV., a serious mouth, a tall figure, thin, or perhaps wasted,
like that of a man just recovering from illness, and finally, a
bearing that was midway between the indolence of a mere idler and the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac: charter of the constitution, that however much a Liberal may be
disposed to complain of them, as of treason against those sublime
ideas with which the ambitious plebeian is apt to cover his
designs, he would none the less think it a preposterous notion
that M. le Prince de Montmorency, for instance, should continue
to live in the Rue Saint-Martin at the corner of the street which
bears that nobleman's name; or that M. le Duc de Fitz-James,
descendant of the royal house of Scotland, should have his hotel
at the angle of the Rue Marie Stuart and the Rue Montorgueil.
Sint ut sunt, aut non sint, the grand words of the Jesuit, might
be taken as a motto by the great in all countries. These social
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: "Yes. I took a little horseback trip into the mountains. My knees
are still not on speaking terms.''
The Sheriff chuckled. Then he sobered.
"Come and sit down," he said. "I'm going to watch who goes in and
out of here for a while."
Bassett followed him unwillingly to two chairs that faced the desk
and the lobby. He had the key of Dick's room in his pocket, but he
knew that if he wakened he could easily telephone and have his door
unlocked. But that was not his only anxiety. He had a sudden
conviction that the Sheriff's watch was connected with Dick himself.
Wilkins, from a friendly and gregarious fellow-being, had suddenly
The Breaking Point |
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 Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft: to phases of Nature and of being utterly forbidden and wholly
outside the sane experience of mankind.
X.
In the end the three
men from Arkham - old, white-bearded Dr Armitage, stocky, iron-grey
Professor Rice, and lean, youngish Dr Morgan, ascended the mountain
alone. After much patient instruction regarding its focusing and
use, they left the telescope with the frightened group that remained
in the road; and as they climbed they were watched closely by
those among whom the glass was passed round. It was hard going,
and Armitage had to be helped more than once. High above the toiling
The Dunwich Horror |
