| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Shadow out of Time by H. P. Lovecraft: of my strange new impulses seemed subtly to pull me.
Sometimes,
on these walks, I would stumble over nearly buried fragments of
the ancient masonry. Though there were fewer visible blocks here
than where we had started, I felt sure that there must be a vast
abundance beneath the surface. The ground was less level than
at our camp, and the prevailing high winds now and then piled
the sand into fantastic temporary hillocks - exposing low traces
of the elder stones while it covered other traces.
I was queerly
anxious to have the excavations extend to this territory, yet
Shadow out of Time |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer: searched for by the keenest wits which the authorities could direct
to the task, but eluding all-triumphant, contemptuous.
One link in that chain Smith himself for long failed to recognize.
Yet it was a big and important link.
"Petrie," he said to me one morning, "listen to this:
"`. . .In sight of Shanghai--a clear, dark night. On board the deck of a junk
passing close to seaward of the Andaman a blue flare started up.
A minute later there was a cry of "Man overboard!"
"`Mr. Lewin, the chief officer, who was in charge, stopped the engines.
A boat was put out. But no one was recovered. There are sharks
in these waters. A fairly heavy sea was running.
The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu |
