| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft: to the European witch-cult, and was virtually unknown beyond its
members. No book had ever really hinted of it, though the deathless
Chinamen said that there were double meanings in the Necronomicon
of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred which the initiated might read
as they chose, especially the much-discussed couplet:
That is
not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even
death may die.
Legrasse, deeply impressed and not a little bewildered,
had inquired in vain concerning the historic affiliations of the
 Call of Cthulhu |
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 Pierrette by Honore de Balzac: to Monsieur Auffray, the notary, had herself married Monsieur
Galardon, the collector. Mother and daughters all considered Monsieur
Tiphaine as the richest and ablest man in the family. The prosecuting
attorney had the strongest interest in sending his uncle to Paris,
expecting to step into his shoes as judge of the local court of
Provins. The four ladies formed a sort of court round Madame Tiphaine,
whose ideas and advice they followed on all occasions. Monsieur
Julliard, the eldest son of the old merchant, who had married the only
daughter of a rich farmer, set up a sudden, secret, and disinterested
passion for Madame Tiphaine, that angel descended from the Parisian
skies. The clever Melanie, too clever to involve herself with
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