| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The White Moll by Frank L. Packard: was like taking candy from a kid! The Sparrow and the old man fell
for the sick-mother-needing-her-son-all-night stuff without batting
a lid; but the Sparrow hasn't been holding the old lady's hand at
the bedside yet. We took care of that."
Again Rhoda Gray made no comment. She wondered, as she gripped at
the rings and brooches in hand, so fiercely that the settings
pricked into the flesh, if her face mirrored in any way the cold,
sick misery that had suddenly taken possession of her soul. The
Sparrow! She knew the Sparrow; she knew the Sparrow's sick mother.
That part of it was true. The Sparrow did have an old mother who
was sick. A fine old lady - finer than the son - Finch, her name
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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 Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H. P. Lovecraft: and amorphous blasphemies that hopped and floundered and wriggled
out of them. Those slippery greyish-white blasphemies they worshipped
as gods, nor ever complained when scores of their best and fatted
males were taken away in the black galleys. The monstrous moon-beasts
made their camp on a jagged isle in the sea, and Carter could
tell from the frescoes that this was none other than the lone
nameless rock he had seen when sailing to Inquanok; that grey
accursed rock which Inquanok's seamen shun, and from which vile
howlings reverberate all through the night.
And in those frescoes
was shewn the great seaport and capital of the almost-humans;
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson: hiding-place and came, safe and sound, but aching with cold and
bruises, to the door of the Goat and Bagpipes. As the law
required, there was neither fire nor candle in the house; but he
groped his way into a corner of the icy guest-room, found an end of
a blanket, which he hitched around his shoulders, and creeping
close to the nearest sleeper, was soon lost in slumber.
BOOK V - CROOKBACK
CHAPTER I - THE SHRILL TRUMPET
Very early the next morning, before the first peep of the day, Dick
arose, changed his garments, armed himself once more like a
gentleman, and set forth for Lawless's den in the forest. There,
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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 Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther: from God, hut seeking of ourselves.
Let every one, then, see to it that he esteem this commandment great
and high above all things, and do not regard it as a joke. Ask and
examine your heart diligently, and you will find whether it cleaves to
God alone or not. If you have a heart that can expect of Him nothing
but what is good, especially in want and distress, and that, moreover
renounces and forsakes everything that is not God, then you have the
only true God. If on the contrary, it cleaves to anything else, of
which it expects more good and help than of God, and does not take
refuge in Him, but in adversity flees from Him, then you have an idol,
another god.
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