| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Beauty and The Beast by Bayard Taylor: There was yet no gray in her hair, no wrinkles about her clear
eyes; each feature appeared to be the same, but the pale,
monotonous color which had replaced the warm bloom of her youth,
gave them a different character. The gracious dignity of her
manner, the mellow tones of her voice, still expressed her
unchanging goodness, yet those who met her were sure to feel, in
some inexplicable way, that to be good is not always to be happy.
Perhaps, indeed, her manner was older than her face and form: she
still attracted the interest of men, but with a certain doubt and
reserve.
Certain it is that when she made her appearance on deck, glad of
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Frances Waldeaux by Rebecca Davis: She had not meant to drive a marriage bargain, and
yet--to have placed a pupil upon even such a bric-a-brac
throne as that of Wolfburgh! She looked thoughtfully at
Lucy's chubby cheeks. A princess? The man was not
objectionable in himself, either--a kindly, overgrown
boy.
"He told me," said Jean, "that he was going to a house
party at Inverary Castle."
"Whose house is that, Jean?" asked Lucy.
"It is the ancestral seat of the Dukes of Argyll."
"Oh!" Lucy gave a little sigh. Prince Hugo was
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Pagan and Christian Creeds by Edward Carpenter: and established the process. The Mediterranean had
become a great Roman lake. Merchant ships and routes
of traffic crossed it in all directions; tourists visited its
shores. The known world had become one. The numberless
peoples, tribes, nations, societies within the girdle of the
Empire, with their various languages, creeds, customs,
religions, philosophies, were profoundly influencing each
other.[1] A great fusion was taking place; and it was becoming
inevitable that the next great religious movement would have
a world-wide character.
[1] For an enlargement on this theme see Glover's Conflict of
Pagan and Christian Creeds |
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 Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft: copy of Dr Dee's English version which his grandfather had bequeathed
him, and upon receiving access to the Latin copy he at once began
to collate the two texts with the aim of discovering a certain
passage which would have come on the 751st page of his own defective
volume. This much he could not civilly refrain from telling the
librarian - the same erudite Henry Armitage (A.M. Miskatonic,
Ph.D. Princeton, Litt.D. Johns Hopkins) who had once called at
the farm, and who now politely plied him with questions. He was
looking, he had to admit, for a kind of formula or incantation
containing the frightful name Yog-Sothoth, and it puzzled him
to find discrepancies, duplications, and ambiguities which made
The Dunwich Horror |
