| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft: window the shrilling of the whippoorwills had suddenly ceased,
and above the murmurs of the gathering crowd there came the sound
of a panic-struck whirring and fluttering. Against the moon vast
clouds of feathery watchers rose and raced from sight, frantic
at that which they had sought for prey.
All at once the dog
started up abruptly, gave a frightened bark, and leaped nervously
out of the window by which it had entered. A cry rose from the
crowd, and Dr Armitage shouted to the men outside that no one
must be admitted till the police or medical examiner came. He
was thankful that the windows were just too high to permit of
The Dunwich Horror |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Beauty and The Beast by Bayard Taylor: society, on the banks of the Volga, a hundred years ago, which
is now impossible, and will soon become incredible. What is
strangest in our narrative has been declared to be true.
II.
We are in Kinesma, a small town on the Volga, between Kostroma and
Nijni-Novgorod. The time is about the middle of the last century,
and the month October.
There was trouble one day, in the palace of Prince Alexis, of
Kinesma. This edifice, with its massive white walls, and its
pyramidal roofs of green copper, stood upon a gentle mound to the
eastward of the town, overlooking it, a broad stretch of the Volga,
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