| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Historical Mystery by Honore de Balzac: notary, which Bordin intercepted, he replied that he had not burned
any papers. The public prosecutor having asked him to describe the
ambush to which he had so nearly fallen a victim two years earlier,
the senator replied that he had seen Michu watching him from the fork
of a tree. This answer, which agreed with Grevin's testimony, produced
a great impression.
The four gentlemen remained impassible during the examination of their
enemy, who seemed determined to overwhelm them with generosity.
Laurence suffered horrible agony. From time to time the Marquis de
Chargeboeuf held her by the arm, fearing she might dart forward to the
rescue. The Comte de Gondreville retired from the courtroom and as he
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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 Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft: as Wilbur Whateley.
VI.
The Dunwich horror itself came between
Lammas and the equinox in 1928, and Dr Armitage was among those
who witnessed its monstrous prologue. He had heard, meanwhile,
of Whateley's grotesque trip to Cambridge, and of his frantic
efforts to borrow or copy from the Necronomicon at the Widener
Library. Those efforts had been in vain, since Armitage had issued
warnings of the keenest intensity to all librarians having charge
of the dreaded volume. Wilbur had been shockingly nervous at Cambridge;
anxious for the book, yet almost equally anxious to get home again,
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 Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: house, waiting for the hour of the witches' sabbath. This fact seemed
the more extraordinary because it was known to be the miser's custom
to lock up his sister at night in a bedroom with iron-barred windows.
As he grew older, Cornelius, constantly robbed, and always fearful of
being duped by men, came to hate mankind, with the one exception of
the king, whom he greatly respected. He fell into extreme misanthropy,
but, like most misers, his passion for gold, the assimilation, as it
were, of that metal with his own substance, became closer and closer,
and age intensified it. His sister herself excited his suspicions,
though she was perhaps more miserly, more rapacious than her brother
whom she actually surpassed in penurious inventions. Their daily
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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 Poems of Goethe, Bowring, Tr. by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: To this form, in humble adoration;
It was brightest midst the constellation
In the hail adorn'd with festal splendour.
SHE.
Be thou joyful that 'tis in my power
To complete thy strange and merry story!
Silks behind her, full of purple glory,
Floated, when thou saw'st her in that hour.
HE.
No, in truth, thou hast not sung it rightly!
Spirits may have told thee all about it;
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