| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells: that swift liquefaction of the social body.
All the railway lines north of the Thames and the South-
Eastern people at Cannon Street had been warned by mid-
night on Sunday, and trains were being filled. People were
fighting savagely for standing-room in the carriages even at
two o'clock. By three, people were being trampled and
crushed even in Bishopsgate Street, a couple of hundred
yards or more from Liverpool Street station; revolvers were
fired, people stabbed, and the policemen who had been sent
to direct the traffic, exhausted and infuriated, were breaking
the heads of the people they were called out to protect.
War of the Worlds |
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: at sea as well as on land. What motive prompted the hybrid crew
to order back the Emma as they sailed about with their hideous
idol? What was the unknown island on which six of the Emma's crew
had died, and about which the mate Johansen was so secretive?
What had the vice-admiralty's investigation brought out, and what
was known of the noxious cult in Dunedin? And most marvellous
of all, what deep and more than natural linkage of dates was this
which gave a malign and now undeniable significance to the various
turns of events so carefully noted by my uncle?
March 1st -
or February 28th according to the International Date Line - the
Call of Cthulhu |
