| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft: engines, exchanged eloquent glances. And then, having gained those
last few feet, we did indeed stare across the momentous divide
and over the unsampled secrets of an elder and utterly alien earth.
V
I think that both of us simultaneously cried out in mixed
awe, wonder, terror, and disbelief in our own senses as we finally
cleared the pass and saw what lay beyond. Of course, we must have
had some natural theory in the back of our heads to steady our
faculties for the moment. Probably we thought of such things as
the grotesquely weathered stones of the Garden of the Gods in
Colorado, or the fantastically symmetrical wind-carved rocks of
At the Mountains of Madness |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Father Goriot by Honore de Balzac: and begged him to take charge of Goriot, who had grown worse as
the day wore on. The medical student was obliged to go out.
"Poor old man, he has not two days to live, maybe not many
hours," he said; "but we must do our utmost, all the same, to
fight the disease. It will be a very troublesome case, and we
shall want money. We can nurse him between us, of course, but,
for my own part, I have not a penny. I have turned out his
pockets, and rummaged through his drawers--result, nix. I asked
him about it while his mind was clear, and he told me he had not
a farthing of his own. What have you?"
"I have twenty francs left," said Rastignac; "but I will take
Father Goriot |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart: But the man in the room had changed his tactics. I knew he was
creeping on me, inch by inch, and I could not tell from where.
And then--he caught me. He held his hand over my mouth, and I
bit him. I was helpless, strangling,--and some one was trying to
break in the mantel from outside. It began to yield somewhere,
for a thin wedge of yellowish light was reflected on the opposite
wall. When he saw that, my assailant dropped me with a curse;
then--the opposite wall swung open noiselessly, closed again
without a sound, and I was alone. The intruder was gone.
"In the next room!" I called wildly. "The next room!" But the
sound of blows on the mantel drowned my voice. By the time I had
The Circular Staircase |
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 Dynamiter by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson: was too clearly printed on my memory; and the sight of it,
even from a distance, filled me with generous indignation.
Flight was impossible. There was nothing left but to retreat
against the railing, and with my back turned to the street,
pretend to be admiring the barges on the river or the
chimneys of transpontine London.
I was still so standing, and had not yet fully mastered the
turbulence of my emotions, when a voice at my elbow addressed
me with a trivial question. It was the maid whom my
stepmother, with characteristic hardness, had left to await
her on the street, while she transacted her business with the
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