| 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: strength was derived.
It was dark when the galley passed betwixt
the Basalt Pillars of the West and the sound of the ultimate cataract
swelled portentous from ahead. And the spray of that cataract
rose to obscure the stars, and the deck grew damp, and the vessel
reeled in the surging current of the brink. Then with a queer
whistle and plunge the leap was taken, and Carter felt the terrors
of nightmare as earth fell away and the great boat shot silent
and comet-like into planetary space. Never before had he known
what shapeless black things lurk and caper and flounder all through
the aether, leering and grinning at such voyagers as may pass,
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 Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft: fragments of apparel were scattered about the room, and just inside
the window an empty canvas sack lay where it had evidently been
thrown. Near the central desk a revolver had fallen, a dented
but undischarged cartridge later explaining why it had not been
fired. The thing itself, however, crowded out all other images
at the time. It would be trite and not wholly accurate to say
that no human pen could describe it, but one may properly say
that it could not be vividly visualized by anyone whose ideas
of aspect and contour are too closely bound up with the common
life-forms of this planet and of the three known dimensions. It
was partly human, beyond a doubt, with very manlike hands and
The Dunwich Horror |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: service, for Marcas had got into debt. He subsidized the newspaper on
which Marcas worked, and made him the manager of it.
Though he despised the man, Marcas, who, practically, was being
subsidized too, consented to take the part of the fallen minister.
Without unmasking at once all the batteries of his superior intellect,
Marcas came a little further than before; he showed half his
shrewdness. The Ministry lasted only a hundred and eighty days; it was
swallowed up. Marcas had put himself into communication with certain
deputies, had moulded them like dough, leaving each impressed with a
high opinion of his talent; his puppet again became a member of the
Ministry, and then the paper was ministerial. The Ministry united the
|
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 Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: doubt. 'Yonder youngster' will have as much money as he wishes when he
comes into power."
"Yes, but suppose that he were rich already?"
"Rich already?" repeated Camille, flushing red. "Why all the girls in
the room would be quarreling for him," she said, glancing at the
quadrilles.
"And then," retorted the attorney, "Mlle. de Grandlieu might not be
the one towards whom his eyes are always turned? That is what that red
color means! You like him, do you not? Come, speak out."
Camille suddenly rose to go.
"She loves him," Derville thought.
Gobseck |
