| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The War in the Air by H. G. Wells: took a small boy to look for a missing hen through the ruins of
Bun Hill and out towards the splintered pinnacles of the Crystal
Palace. He was not a very old man; he was, as a matter of fact,
still within a few weeks of sixty-three, but constant stooping
over spades and forks and the carrying of roots and manure, and
exposure to the damps of life in the open-air without a change of
clothing, had bent him into the form of a sickle. Moreover, he
had lost most of his teeth and that had affected his digestion
and through that his skin and temper. In face and expression he
was curiously like that old Thomas Smallways who had once been
coachman to Sir Peter Bone, and this was just as it should be,
|
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 Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: Parliament hatch some twelve hundred laws every session, yet no member
of Parliament has ever yet raised an objection to the system----"
"A cure for plethora of the strong box. Purely vegetable remedy," put
in Bixiou, "les carottes" (gambling speculation).
"Look here!" cried Couture, firing up at this. "You have ten thousand
francs. You invest it in ten shares of a thousand francs each in ten
different enterprises. You are swindled nine times out of the ten--as
a matter of fact you are not, the public is a match for anybody, but
say that you are swindled, and only one affair turns out well (by
accident!--oh, granted!--it was not done on purpose--there, chaff
away!). Very well, the punter that has the sense to divide up his
|
