| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: Lincoln, instead of recalling Secretary Seward, telegraphed that
he would himself come to Fortress Monroe, and started that same
night. The next morning, February 3, 1865, he and the Secretary
of State received the rebel commissioners on board the
President's steamer, the River Queen.
This conference between the two highest officials of the United
States government, and three messengers from the Confederacy,
bound, as the President well knew beforehand, by instructions
which made any practical outcome impossible, brings out, in
strongest relief, Mr. Lincoln's kindly patience, even toward the
rebellion. He was determined to leave no means untried that
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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 At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft: cut out and removed, as by a careful butcher; and around them
was a strange sprinkling of salt - taken from the ravaged provision
chests on the planes - which conjured up the most horrible associations.
The thing had occurred in one of the crude aeroplane shelters
from which the plane had been dragged out, and subsequent winds
had effaced all tracks which could have supplied any plausible
theory. Scattered bits of clothing, roughly slashed from the human
incision subjects, hinted no clues. It is useless to bring up
the half impression of certain faint snow prints in one shielded
corner of the ruined inclosure - because that impression did not
concern human prints at all, but was clearly mixed up with all
At the Mountains of Madness |
