| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Songs of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: At my departing, may his lion head
Not whiten, his revolving years
No fresh occasion minister of tears;
At book or cards, at work or sport,
Him may the breeze across the palace court
For ever fan; and swelling near
For ever the loud song divert his ear.
Schooner 'Equator,' at Sea.
XXXVIII - THE WOODMAN
IN all the grove, nor stream nor bird
Nor aught beside my blows was heard,
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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 Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs: He wore in addition to his leathern trappings and jewelled
ornaments a great circlet of gold about his brow in the exact
centre of which was set an immense stone, the exact counterpart
of that which I had seen upon the breast of the little old
man at the atmosphere plant nearly twenty years before.
It is the one priceless jewel of Barsoom. Only two are
known to exist, and these were worn as the insignia of their
rank and position by the two old men in whose charge was
placed the operation of the great engines which pump the
artificial atmosphere to all parts of Mars from the huge
atmosphere plant, the secret to whose mighty portals placed
The Gods of Mars |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft: of a word so unheard-of. This manuscript was divided into two
sections, the first of which was headed "1925 - Dream and Dream
Work of H.A. Wilcox, 7 Thomas St., Providence, R. I.", and the
second, "Narrative of Inspector John R. Legrasse, 121 Bienville
St., New Orleans, La., at 1908 A. A. S. Mtg. - Notes on Same,
& Prof. Webb's Acct." The other manuscript papers were brief notes,
some of them accounts of the queer dreams of different persons,
some of them citations from theosophical books and magazines (notably
W. Scott-Elliot's Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria), and the rest
comments on long-surviving secret societies and hidden cults,
with references to passages in such mythological and anthropological
Call of Cthulhu |
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 In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: the sea swung heavily in rolling waves. Wind crept round the house,
moaning drearily.
"We're in for a storm. That means I'm boxed up here all day. Well,
there's one blessing; it'll clear the air." He heard the servant girl
rushing importantly round the house, slamming windows. Then he caught a
glimpse of her in the garden, unpegging tea towels from the line across the
lawn. She was a worker, there was no doubt about that. He took up a book,
and wheeled his arm-chair over to the window. But it was useless. Too
dark to read; he didn't believe in straining his eyes, and gas at ten
o'clock in the morning seemed absurd. So he slipped down in the chair,
leaned his elbows on the padded arms and gave himself up, for once, to idle
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