| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Wrong Box by Stevenson & Osbourne: of the popular press are to me as important as food and drink;
and my life was growing quite intolerable when, in the confusion
of that fortunate railway accident at Browndean, I made my
escape. They must think me dead, and are trying to deceive the
world for the chance of the tontine.'
'By the way, how do you stand for money?' asked Michael kindly.
'Pecuniarily speaking, I am rich,' returned the old man with
cheerfulness. 'I am living at present at the rate of one hundred
a year, with unlimited pens and paper; the British Museum at
which to get books; and all the newspapers I choose to read. But
it's extraordinary how little a man of intellectual interest
|
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 Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen: "'Tis a bet, and I have won it!" But the first thing he did as soon as he got
home, was to have a large blister put on his chest and back to draw out his
madness.
The next morning he had a sore chest and a bleeding back; and, excepting the
fright, that was all that he had gained by the Shoes of Fortune.
V. Metamorphosis of the Copying-Clerk
The watchman, whom we have certainly not forgotten, thought meanwhile of the
galoshes he had found and taken with him to the hospital; he now went to fetch
them; and as neither the lieutenant, nor anybody else in the street, claimed
them as his property, they were delivered over to the police-office.*
* As on the continent, in all law and police practices nothing is verbal, but
 Fairy Tales |