| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Fantastic Fables by Ambrose Bierce: between the two the Hawk was calamitously defeated.
The Wolf and the Shepherds
A WOLF passing a Shepherd's hut looked in and saw the shepherds
dining.
"Come in," said one of them, ironically, "and partake of your
favourite dish, a haunch of mutton."
"Thank you," said the Wolf, moving away, "but you must excuse me; I
have just had a saddle of shepherd."
The Goose and the Swan
A CERTAIN rich man reared a Goose and a Swan, the one for his
table, the other because she was reputed a good singer. One night
 Fantastic Fables |
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 Twelve Stories and a Dream by H. G. Wells: between himself and the girl at Clapton Hill to whom he was engaged.
She was a farmer's daughter, said Skelmersdale, and "very respectable,"
and no doubt an excellent match for him; but both girl and lover
were very young and with just that mutual jealousy, that intolerantly
keen edge of criticism, that irrational hunger for a beautiful
perfection, that life and wisdom do presently and most mercifully
dull. What the precise matter of quarrel was I have no idea. She may
have said she liked men in gaiters when he hadn't any gaiters on,
or he may have said he liked her better in a different sort of hat,
but however it began, it got by a series of clumsy stages to bitterness
and tears. She no doubt got tearful and smeary, and he grew dusty
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