| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: chairs vacant, which formed rows of fortifications held by mothers or
women of middle age; and the Colonel seized the opportunity to make
his way through this palisade hung with shawls and wraps. He began by
making himself agreeable to the dowagers, and so from one to another,
and from compliment to compliment, he at last reached the empty space
next the stranger. At the risk of catching on to the gryphons and
chimaeras of the huge candelabrum, he stood there, braving the glare
and dropping of the wax candles, to Martial's extreme annoyance.
The Colonel, far too tactful to speak suddenly to the little blue lady
on his right, began by saying to a plain woman who was seated on the
left:
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: after my flight from Maryland, I was safe in New Bedford, a citizen of
the grand old commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Once initiated into my new life of freedom and assured by Mr. Johnson
that I need not fear recapture in that city, a comparatively unimportant
question arose as to the name by which I should be known thereafter
in my new relation as a free man. The name given me by my dear mother
was no less pretentious and long than Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey.
I had, however, while living in Maryland, dispensed with the
Augustus Washington, and retained only Frederick Bailey.
Between Baltimore and New Bedford, the better to conceal myself
from the slave-hunters, I had parted with Bailey and called myself Johnson;
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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 A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: himself with small expense in those days. The Liberal party called
their provincial champion 'the courageous Cerizet,' and towards 1828
so much zeal received its reward in 'general interest.'
" 'General interest' is a kind of civic crown bestowed on the
deserving by the daily press. Cerizet tried to discount the 'general
interest' taken in him. He came to Paris, and, with some help from
capitalists in the Opposition, started as a broker, and conducted
financial operations to some extent, the capital being found by a man
in hiding, a skilful gambler who overreached himself, and in
consequence, in July 1830, his capital foundered in the shipwreck of
the Government."
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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 Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft: space, and of those unhallowed blasphemies from elder stars which
dream beneath the sea, known and favoured by a nightmare cult
ready and eager to loose them upon the world whenever another
earthquake shall heave their monstrous stone city again to the
sun and air.
Johansen's voyage had begun just as he told it
to the vice-admiralty. The Emma, in ballast, had cleared Auckland
on February 20th, and had felt the full force of that earthquake-born
tempest which must have heaved up from the sea-bottom the horrors
that filled men's dreams. Once more under control, the ship was
making good progress when held up by the Alert on March 22nd,
Call of Cthulhu |
