| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Shadow out of Time by H. P. Lovecraft: my heredity and early life. This is a highly important fact in
view of the shadow which fell so suddenly upon me from outside
sources.
It may be that centuries of dark brooding had given
to crumbling, whisper-haunted Arkham a peculiar vulnerability
as regards such shadows - though even this seems doubtful in the
light of those other cases which I later came to study. But the
chief point is that my own ancestry and background are altogether
normal. What came, came from somewhere else - where I even now
hesitate to assert in plain words.
I am the son of Jonathan
 Shadow out of Time |
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 The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther: shame, calamity and trouble, but who is very loath to hear God's name,
and cannot remain long where it is uttered and called upon from the
heart. And, indeed, many a terrible and shocking calamity would befall
us if, by our calling upon His name, God did not preserve us. I have
myself tried it, and learned by experience that often sudden great
calamity was immediately averted and removed during such invocation. To
vex the devil, I say, we should always have this holy name in our
mouth, so that he may not be able to injure us as he wishes.
For this end it is also of service that we form the habit of daily
commending ourselves to God, with soul and body, wife, children,
servants, and all that we have, against every need that may occur;
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