| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: British Possessions and all; in the beginning of our century there
were only 6,000,000 or 7,000,000 - say seven; 12,000,000 or
14,000,000 in 1825; say 23,000,000 in 1850; 40,000,000 in 1875.
Our death-rate has always been 20 in 1000 per annum. Well, 140,000
died the first year of the century; 280,000 the twenty-fifth year;
500,000 the fiftieth year; about a million the seventy-fifth year.
Now I am going to be liberal about this thing, and consider that
fifty million whites have died in America from the beginning up to
to-day - make it sixty, if you want to; make it a hundred million -
it's no difference about a few millions one way or t'other. Well,
now, you can see, yourself, that when you come to spread a little
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Footnote to History by Robert Louis Stevenson: new flag of Tamasese. It is true (and it was the subject of much
remark) that these two could hardly be distinguished by the naked
eye; but their effects were different. To seat the puppet king on
German land and under German colours, so that any rebellion was
constructive war on Germany, was a trick apparently invented by
Becker, and which we shall find was repeated and persevered in till
the end.
Otto Martin was at this time magistrate in the municipality. The
post was held in turn by the three nationalities; Martin had served
far beyond his term, and should have been succeeded months before
by an American. To make the change it was necessary to hold a
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| 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: and pictorial design. Many of his questions seemed highly out
of place to his visitor, especially those which tried to connect
the latter with strange cults or societies; and Wilcox could not
understand the repeated promises of silence which he was offered
in exchange for an admission of membership in some widespread
mystical or paganly religious body. When Professor Angell became
convinced that the sculptor was indeed ignorant of any cult or
system of cryptic lore, he besieged his visitor with demands for
future reports of dreams. This bore regular fruit, for after the
first interview the manuscript records daily calls of the young
man, during which he related startling fragments of nocturnal
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 The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic: I must tell you that if I don't talk gratitude to you,
it's simply and solely because I don't know where to begin,
or what to say. I'm just dumfounded at your goodness.
It takes my speech away. I only know this, Candace:
God will be very good to you."
"Tut! tut!" replied Sister Soulsby, "that's all right,
you dear thing. I know just how you feel. Don't dream
of being under obligation to explain it to me, or to thank
us at all. We've had all sorts of comfort out of the thing--
Soulsby and I. We used to get downright lonesome, here all
by ourselves, and we've simply had a winter of pleasant
The Damnation of Theron Ware |
