| 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: 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.
"May it please your Majesty," cried the Ingenious Patriot, in
terror, "one of them contains tobacco."
"Hold him up by the ankles and shake him," said the King; "then
give him a check for forty-two million tumtums and put him to
death. Let a decree issue declaring ingenuity a capital offence."
Two Kings
Fantastic Fables |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dust by Mr. And Mrs. Haldeman-Julius: little woman as ever I've laid eyes on."
"Is that all? Oh, Uncle Martin, just pretty? The boys usually say
I'm beautiful."
"You are beautiful--as beautiful as a rose. That's what you are,
a red, red rose of Sharon--with your dove's eyes, your little
white teeth like a flock of even sheep and your sweet, pretty
lips like a thread of scarlet."
"Why, Uncle Martin!" exclaimed the girl, a trifle puzzled by the
intensity of his quiet tone, and stressing their relationship
ever so lightly. "You're almost a poet."
"You mean old King Solomon was," he retrieved himself quickly.
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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 The Door in the Wall, et. al. by H. G. Wells: about. I had so newly thrown off the incubus of responsibility: I
was still so fresh a renegade from duty that the daylight clearness
of what I ought to do had no power at all to touch my will. My
will was to live, to gather pleasures and make my dear lady happy.
But though this sense of vast neglected duties had no power to draw
me, it could make me silent and preoccupied, it robbed the days I
had spent of half their brightness and roused me into dark
meditations in the silence of the night. And as I stood and
watched Evesham's aeroplanes sweep to and fro--those birds of
infinite ill omen--she stood beside me watching me, perceiving the
trouble indeed, but not perceiving it clearly--her eyes questioning
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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 The Happy Prince and Other Tales by Oscar Wilde: So he returned to his room and pulled out a great dusty book, and
began to read.
THE SELFISH GIANT
Every afternoon, as they were coming from school, the children used
to go and play in the Giant's garden.
It was a large lovely garden, with soft green grass. Here and
there over the grass stood beautiful flowers like stars, and there
were twelve peach-trees that in the spring-time broke out into
delicate blossoms of pink and pearl, and in the autumn bore rich
fruit. The birds sat on the trees and sang so sweetly that the
children used to stop their games in order to listen to them. "How
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