THE PRACTICE OF ASTROLOGY 
165 
and trying to spot the rising sign of everybody you know. 
Look at them full-face, then profile; and note salient 
characteristics, pendulous lips, receding chins, bulbous noses, 
narrow foreheads, stuck-out ears, pimples, squints, warts, 
shape of face (three main types; thin, jutting, for cardinal 
signs; square, steadfast for kerubic; weak, nondescript, for 
the rest); then the stature , whether lithe, well-knit, sturdy, 
muscular, fat or what not; in short every bodily feature in 
turn; make up your mind what sign was rising at birth, and 
stick to it! 
Again, you can practice this in cafes, when you visit 
civilized countries, and it is often possible to scrape 
acquaintance with people who look specially interesting, and 
do not, as in England, instantly suspect you of dishonourable 
advances, and get them to play up. This is sometimes easier 
when you are already with that friend which I was so lax as 
to allow you; and it is, I own, very helpful to discuss strange 
faces if only to make it quite clear to your own mind why 
you decide on one as Virgo, another as Taurus. 
A strange thing happened once; I had explained all this to 
the girl that I happened to be living with: that is, I taught her 
the names of the signs; she knew no Astrology, not even the 
simple correspondences. After about a month, she was better 
at it than I was! ("Why strange?" you mutter rudely. "Quite 
right, my dear! I have always been a wretched reader of 
character . Bless my soul! there was a time when I had hopes 
of you," I savagely retort.) She had picked up the knack, the 
trick of it; she could select, eliminate, re-compose, compare 
with past experience, and form a judgment, without knowing 
the names of its materials. 
When you have got your sea-legs at both these parts of 
your astrological education, you may (I think) put out to sea 
with some confidence. Perhaps a fair test of your fitness 
would be when you got three people right out of four, in a 
total of a score or so. Well, allow for my being in a "mood" 
to-night; call it two out of three. If it were guesswork, after 
all, that means you are bringing it off at seven to one.