| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Fantastic Fables by Ambrose Bierce: it first to your Majesty. The price is one million tumtums."
Having received the promise of another check, he thrust his hand
into still another pocket, remarking:
"The price of the irresistible gun would have been much greater,
your Majesty, but for the fact that its missiles can be so
effectively averted by my peculiar method of treating the armour
plates with a new- "
The King signed to the Great Head Factotum to approach.
"Search this man," he said, "and report how many pockets he has."
"Forty-three, Sire," said the Great Head Factotum, completing the
scrutiny.
Fantastic Fables |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Black Beauty by Anna Sewell: you know I have been trained by my father."
"I wish all the boys had been trained like you," said the governor.
While Harry was sponging off the mud from Hotspur's body and legs
Dolly came in, looking very full of something.
"Who lives at Fairstowe, Harry? Mother has got a letter from Fairstowe;
she seemed so glad, and ran upstairs to father with it."
"Don't you know? Why, it is the name of Mrs. Fowler's place --
mother's old mistress, you know -- the lady that father met last summer,
who sent you and me five shillings each."
"Oh! Mrs. Fowler. Of course, I know all about her. I wonder what
she is writing to mother about."
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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 Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: asking wearily, "Mr. Sagen not in yet? Didn' he leave any message for me? All
right, I'll hold the wire." Staring at a stain on the wall, reflecting that
it resembled a shoe, and being bored by this twentieth discovery that it
resembled a shoe. Lighting a cigarette; then, bound to the telephone with no
ashtray in reach, wondering what to do with this burning menace and anxiously
trying to toss it into the tiled bathroom. At last, on the telephone, "No
message, eh? All right, I'll call up again."
One afternoon he wandered through snow-rutted streets of which he had never
heard, streets of small tenements and two-family houses and marooned cottages.
It came to him that he had nothing to do, that there was nothing he wanted to
do. He was bleakly lonely in the evening, when he dined by himself at the
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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 A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy: to diversify the scene--the crackle of cart-wheels was heard
outside, and Martin Cannister stamped in at the doorway, in the
form of a pair of legs beneath a great box, his body being nowhere
visible. When the luggage had been all taken down, and Stephen
had gone upstairs to change his clothes, Mrs. Smith's mind seemed
to recover a lost thread.
'Really our clock is not worth a penny,' she said, turning to it
and attempting to start the pendulum.
'Stopped again?' inquired Martin with commiseration.
'Yes, sure,' replied Mrs. Smith; and continued after the manner of
certain matrons, to whose tongues the harmony of a subject with a
A Pair of Blue Eyes |
