| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Herbert West: Reanimator by H. P. Lovecraft: but was only too well known to me, who had been his closest friend
and sole assistant since the old days in Miskatonic University
Medical School at Arkham. It was in those college days that he
had begun his terrible experiments, first on small animals and
then on human bodies shockingly obtained. There was a solution
which he injected into the veins of dead things, and if they were
fresh enough they responded in strange ways. He had had much trouble
in discovering the proper formula, for each type of organism was
found to need a stimulus especially adapted to it. Terror stalked
him when he reflected on his partial failures; nameless things
resulting from imperfect solutions or from bodies insufficiently
Herbert West: Reanimator |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Straight Deal by Owen Wister: schooling was done? Did you know that our reasons for declaring war
against Great Britain in 1812 were not so strong as they had been three
and four years earlier? That during those years England had moderated her
arrogance, was ready to moderate further, had placated us for her brutal
performance concerning the Chesapeake, wanted peace; while we, who had
been nearly unanimous for war, and with a fuller purse in 1808, were now,
by our own congressional fuddling and messing, without any adequate army,
and so divided in counsel that only one northern state was wholly in
favor of war? Did you know that our General Hull began by invading Canada
from Detroit and surrendered his whole army without firing a shot? That
the British overran Michigan and parts of Ohio, and western New York,
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