| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Moran of the Lady Letty by Frank Norris: Millner" as a filibuster, and put to sea again. They had
discussed the advisability of rounding the Horn in so small a ship
as the "Bertha Millner," but Moran had settled that at once.
"I've got to know her pretty well," she told Wilbur. "She's sound
as a nut. Only let's get away from this place."
But toward ten o'clock on the morning after their arrival off
Coronado, and just as they were preparing to get under way, Hoang
touched Wilbur's elbow.
"Seeum lil one-piece smoke-boat; him come chop-chop."
In fact, a little steam-launch was rapidly approaching the
schooner. In another instant she was alongside. Jerry, Nat
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot: Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights
Her stove, and lays out food in tins.
Out of the window perilously spread
Her drying combinations touched by the sun's last rays,
On the divan are piled (at night her bed)
Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.
I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest --
I too awaited the expected guest. 230
He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,
The Waste Land |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Duchess of Padua by Oscar Wilde: His intimate: so much I will confess,
And this too, that I waited till he grew
To give the fondest secrets of his life
Into my keeping, till he fawned on me,
And trusted me in every private matter
Even as my noble father trusted him;
That for this thing I waited.
[To the Headsman.] Thou man of blood!
Turn not thine axe on me before the time:
Who knows if it be time for me to die?
Is there no other neck in court but mine?
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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 The Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft: to print flamboyant Sunday stories of young Wilbur's precociousness,
Old Whateley's black magic, and the shelves of strange books,
the sealed second storey of the ancient farmhouse, and the weirdness
of the whole region and its hill noises. Wilbur was four and a
half then, and looked like a lad of fifteen. His lips and cheeks
were fuzzy with a coarse dark down, and his voice had begun to
break.
Earl Sawyer went out to the Whateley place with both
sets of reporters and camera men, and called their attention to
the queer stench which now seemed to trickle down from the sealed
upper spaces. It was, he said, exactly like a smell he had found
The Dunwich Horror |
