The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland by Olive Schreiner: of the fire, with his gun ready. A stone half sheltered him from anyone
coming up from the other side of the kopje, and the instant the figure
appeared over the edge he intended to fire.
Then, the thought flashed on him; what, and if it were one of his own
comrades come in search of him, and no bare-footed enemy! The anguish of
suspense wrung his heart; for an instant he hesitated. Then, in a cold
agony of terror, he cried out, "Who is there?"
And a voice replied in clear, slow English, "A friend."
Peter Halket almost let his gun drop, in the revulsion of feeling. The
cold sweat which anguish had restrained burst out in large drops on his
forehead; but he still knelt holding his gun.
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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 Herbert West: Reanimator by H. P. Lovecraft: We had fair luck with specimens in Bolton -- much better than
in Arkham. We had not been settled a week before we got an accident
victim on the very night of burial, and made it open its eyes
with an amazingly rational expression before the solution failed.
It had lost an arm -- if it had been a perfect body we might have
succeeded better. Between then and the next January we secured
three more; one total failure, one case of marked muscular motion,
and one rather shivery thing -- it rose of itself and uttered
a sound. Then came a period when luck was poor; interments fell
off, and those that did occur were of specimens either too diseased
or too maimed for use. We kept track of all the deaths and their
 Herbert West: Reanimator |