| 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: driven Danforth to a nervous collapse. I wish he would add a really
frank word about the thing which he thinks he alone saw - even
though it was probably a nervous delusion - and which was perhaps
the last straw that put him where he is; but he is firm against
that. All I can do is to repeat his later disjointed whispers
about what set him shrieking as the plane soared back through
the wind-tortured mountain pass after that real and tangible shock
which I shared. This will form my last word. If the plain signs
of surviving elder horrors in what I disclose be not enough to
keep others from meddling with the inner antarctic - or at least
from prying too deeply beneath the surface of that ultimate waste
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 The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy: imperturbably. "Two gentlemen, Lord Antony Dewhurst and Sir Andrew
Ffoulkes were at `The Fisherman's Rest' at Dover that same night."
"I know. I saw them there."
"They were already known to my spies as members of that
accursed league. It was Sir Andrew Ffoulkes who escorted the Comtesse
de Tournay and her children across the Channel. When the two young
men were alone, my spies forced their way into the coffee-room of the
inn, gagged and pinioned the two gallants, seized their papers, and
brought them to me."
In a moment she had guessed the danger. Papers?. . .Had
Armand been imprudent?. . .The very thought struck her with nameless
The Scarlet Pimpernel |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Options by O. Henry: it's said that only one man did the job.'
"'Seems to me I do,' says I. 'But such things happen so often they
don't linger long in the human Texas mind. Did they overtake,
overhaul, seize, or lay hands upon the despoiler?'
"'He escaped,' says Ogden. 'And I was just reading in a paper to-day
that the officers have tracked him down into this part of the country.
It seems the bills the robber got were all the first issue of currency
to the Second National Bank of Espinosa City. And so they've followed
the trail where they've been spent, and it leads this way.'
"Ogden pours out some more Bourbon, and shoves me the bottle.
"'I imagine,' says I, after ingurgitating another modicum of the royal
Options |
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 Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: Cicero, and, changing his mind, he now wholly set himself with
his friends to contrive his return. And when Clodius opposed
it, the senate made a vote that no public measure should be
ratified or passed by them till Cicero was recalled. But when
Lentulus was consul, the commotions grew so high upon this
matter, that the tribunes were wounded in the Forum, and
Quintus, Cicero's brother, was left as dead, lying unobserved
amongst the slain. The people began to change in their
feelings; and Annius Milo, one of their tribunes, was the first
who took confidence to summon Clodius to trial for acts of
violence. Many of the common people and out of the neighboring
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