| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Melmoth Reconciled by Honore de Balzac: at a glance the nature of any material object, just as he caught as it
were all flavors at once upon his tongue. He took his pleasure like a
despot; a blow of the axe felled the tree that he might eat its
fruits. The transitions, the alternations that measure joy and pain,
and diversify human happiness, no longer existed for him. He had so
completely glutted his appetites that pleasure must overpass the
limits of pleasure to tickle a palate cloyed with satiety, and
suddenly grown fastidious beyond all measure, so that ordinary
pleasures became distasteful. Conscious that at will he was the master
of all the women that he could desire, knowing that his power was
irresistible, he did not care to exercise it; they were pliant to his
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft: feet.
The successful establishment of the southern base above
the glacier in Latitude 86° 7’, East Longitude 174° 23’, and the
phenomenally rapid and effective borings and blastings made at
various points reached by our sledge trips and short aeroplane
flights, are matters of history; as is the arduous and triumphant
ascent of Mt. Nansen by Pabodie and two of the graduate students
- Gedney and Carroll - on December 13 - 15. We were some eight
thousand, five hundred feet above sea-level, and when experimental
drillings revealed solid ground only twelve feet down through
the snow and ice at certain points, we made considerable use of
At the Mountains of Madness |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Ebb-Tide by Stevenson & Osbourne: tonic to the merely weak, and so deadly a depressant to the
merely cowardly.
For some time the voyage went otherwise well. They weathered
Fakarava with one board; and the wind holding well to the
southward and blowing fresh, they passed between Ranaka and
Ratiu, and ran some days north-east by east-half-east under the
lee of Takume and Honden, neither of which they made. In
about 14 degrees South and between 134 and 135 degrees West, it
fell a dead calm with rather a heavy sea. The captain refused to
take in sail, the helm was lashed, no watch was set, and the
Farallone rolled and banged for three days, according to
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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 Heart of the West by O. Henry: Cricket, and see how many cards he draws. You're up against it,
anyhow. You got a nickel and gallopin' consumption, and you better
lay low. Lay low and see w'at's his game."
At Rincon, a hundred miles from San Antonio, they left the train for a
buckboard which was waiting there for Raidler. In this they travelled
the thirty miles between the station and their destination. If
anything could, this drive should have stirred the acrimonious McGuire
to a sense of his ransom. They sped upon velvety wheels across an
exhilarant savanna. The pair of Spanish ponies struck a nimble,
tireless trot, which gait they occasionally relieved by a wild,
untrammelled gallop. The air was wine and seltzer, perfumed, as they
Heart of the West |
