| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Juana by Honore de Balzac: honor of the merchant, momentarily compromised, required a prompt and
secret succor. La Marana made over to the husband the whole sum she
had obtained of the father for Juana's "dot," requiring neither
acknowledgment nor interest. According to her own code of honor, a
contract, a trust, was a thing of the heart, and God its supreme
judge. After stating the miseries of her position to Dona Lagounia,
she confided her daughter and her daughter's fortune to the fine old
Spanish honor, pure and spotless, which filled the precincts of that
ancient house. Dona Lagounia had no child, and she was only too happy
to obtain one to nurture. The mother then parted from her Juana,
convinced that the child's future was safe, and certain of having
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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 Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H. P. Lovecraft: than at any other time since he had gone down the seven hundred
steps from the cavern of flame to the Gate of Deeper Slumber.
There, on a tombstone of 1768 stolen from the Granary Burying
Ground in Boston, sat a ghoul which was once the artist Richard
Upton Pickman. It was naked and rubbery, and had acquired so much
of the ghoulish physiognomy that its human origin was already
obscure. But it still remembered a little English, and was able
to converse with Carter in grunts and monosyllables, helped out
now and then by the glibbering of ghouls. When it learned that
Carter wished to get to the enchanted wood and from there to the
city Celephais in Ooth-Nargai beyond the Tanarian Hills, it seemed
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Tapestried Chamber by Walter Scott: besides, seemed the most favourable opportunity of removing the
unpleasant rumours which attached to the room, since your courage
was indubitable, and your mind free of any preoccupation on the
subject. I could not, therefore, have chosen a more fitting
subject for my experiment."
"Upon my life," said General Browne, somewhat hastily, "I am
infinitely obliged to your lordship--very particularly indebted
indeed. I am likely to remember for some time the consequences
of the experiment, as your lordship is pleased to call it."
"Nay, now you are unjust, my dear friend," said Lord Woodville.
"You have only to reflect for a single moment, in order to be
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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 Malbone: An Oldport Romance by Thomas Wentworth Higginson: been guiding him, and at some appointed signal all these
complications were to be cleared, and he and his various loves
were somehow to be ingeniously provided for, and all be made
happy ever after.
He really grew quite tender and devout over these meditations.
Phil was not a conceited fellow, by any means, but he had been
so often told by women that their love for him had been a
blessing to their souls, that he quite acquiesced in being a
providential agent in that particular direction. Considered as
a form of self-sacrifice, it was not without its pleasures.
Malbone drove that afternoon to Mrs. Ingleside's charming
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