| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: is always delightful to our languid senses; it increases their
negative happiness. I, a seeker after impressions, admired the faces
about me, enlivened by smiles, beaming in the light of the wax
candles, and somewhat flushed by our late good cheer; their diverse
expressions producing piquant effects seen among the porcelain
baskets, the fruits, the glasses, and the candelabra.
All of a sudden my imagination was caught by the aspect of a guest who
sat directly in front of me. He was a man of medium height, rather fat
and smiling, having the air and manner of a stock-broker, and
apparently endowed with a very ordinary mind. Hitherto I had scarcely
noticed him, but now his face, possibly darkened by a change in the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Fantastic Fables by Ambrose Bierce: and happy reign was poisoned by his Prime Minister.
The Two Poets
Two Poets were quarrelling for the Apple of Discord and the Bone of
Contention, for they were very hungry.
"My sons," said Apollo, "I will part the prizes between you. You,"
he said to the First Poet, "excel in Art - take the Apple. And
you," he said to the Second Poet, "in Imagination - take the Bone."
"To Art the best prize!" said the First Poet, triumphantly, and
endeavouring to devour his award broke all his teeth. The Apple
was a work of Art.
"That shows our Master's contempt for mere Art," said the Second
Fantastic Fables |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from From London to Land's End by Daniel Defoe: another the kindest, neighbours that are to be found; and as they
generally live, as we may say, together (for they are almost always
at one another's houses), so they generally intermarry among
themselves, the gentlemen seldom going out of the county for a
wife, or the ladies for a husband; from whence they say that
proverb upon them was raised, viz., "That all the Cornish gentlemen
are cousins."
On the hills north of Liskeard, and in the way between Liskeard and
Launceston, there are many tin-mines. And, as they told us, some
of the richest veins of that metal are found there that are in the
whole county--the metal, when cast at the blowing houses into
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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 Tom Grogan by F. Hopkinson Smith: listen to me.' We lived in Newark, mum, an' had four rooms and a
mahogany sofa and two carpets, till the strike come in the
clock-factory, an' me man had to quit; an' then all winter--oh,
we're not used to the likes of this!"--covering her face with her
shawl and bursting into tears.
Tom had risen to her feet, her face expressing the deepest
sympathy for the woman, though she was at a loss to understand the
cause of her visitor's distress.
"Is yer man fired?" she asked.
"No, an' wouldn't be if they'd let him alone. He's sober an'
steady, an' never tastes a drop, and brings his money home to me
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