| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: to comfort Christians and exhort them to trust in God, mingled worldly
regrets and lover's sighs with the holy words of the breviary. By the
dim light that shone on the pale faces of the company, it was possible
to see their differing expressions as the boat was lifted high in air
by a wave, to be cast back into the dark depths; the shallop quivered
like a fragile leaf, the plaything of the north wind in the autumn;
the hull creaked, it seemed ready to go to pieces. Fearful shrieks
went up, followed by an awful silence.
There was a strange difference between the behavior of the folk in the
bows and that of the rich or great people at the other end of the
boat. The young mother clasped her infant tightly to her breast every
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: still a living germ in such ancient seeds, Holgrave had planted
some of them; and the result of his experiment was a splendid
row of bean-vines, clambering, early, to the full height of the
poles, and arraying them, from top to bottom, in a spiral
profusion of red blossoms. And, ever since the unfolding of the
first bud, a multitude of humming-birds had been attracted
thither. At times, it seemed as if for every one of the hundred
blossoms there was one of these tiniest fowls of the air,--a
thumb's bigness of burnished plumage, hovering and vibrating
about the bean-poles. It was with indescribable interest, and
even more than childish delight, that Clifford watched the
House of Seven Gables |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft: 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
of forbidden secrets and inhuman, aeon-cursed desolation - the
responsibility for unnamable and perhaps immeasurable evils will
At the Mountains of Madness |
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 Adieu by Honore de Balzac: The Russians came down with the rapidity of a conflagration. Men,
women, children, horses,--all rushed tumultuously to the bridge.
Fortunately the major, who was carrying the countess, was still some
distance from it. General Eble had just set fire to the supports on
the other bank. In spite of the warnings shouted to those who were
rushing upon the bridge, not a soul went back. Not only did the bridge
go down crowded with human beings, but the impetuosity of that flood
of men toward the fatal bank was so furious that a mass of humanity
poured itself violently into the river like an avalanche. Not a cry
was heard; the only sound was like the dropping of monstrous stones
into the water. Then the Beresina was a mass of floating corpses.
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