| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Purse by Honore de Balzac: saw once more the mother's faded features, or he felt the touch
of Adelaide's hands. He remembered some gesture which at first
had not greatly struck him, but whose exquisite grace was thrown
into relief by memory; then an attitude, or the tones of a
melodious voice, enhanced by the distance of remembrance,
suddenly rose before him, as objects plunging to the bottom of
deep waters come back to the surface.
So, on the day when he could resume work, he went early to his
studio; but the visit he undoubtedly had a right to pay to his
neighbors was the true cause of his haste; he had already
forgotten the pictures he had begun. At the moment when a passion
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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 Fantastic Fables by Ambrose Bierce: came round the world the other way."
But when he tried to execute his fell purpose he found that in the
order of nature it was appointed that he himself perish miserably
in the encounter.
An Inflated Ambition
THE President of a great Corporation went into a dry-goods shop and
saw a placard which read:
"If You Don't See What You Want, Ask For It."
Approaching the shopkeeper, who had been narrowly observing him as
he read the placard, he was about to speak, when the shopkeeper
called to a salesman:
Fantastic Fables |
