| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke: cloaks of ice.
As we row along the shore, trolling in vain for the trout that live
in the ice-cold water, fragments of the tattered cloth-of-silver far
above us, on the opposite side, are loosened by the touch of the
summer sun, and fall from the precipice. They drift downward, at
first, as noiselessly as thistledowns; then they strike the rocks
and come crashing towards the lake with the hollow roar of an
avalanche.
At the head of the lake we find ourselves in an enormous
amphitheatre of mountains. Glaciers are peering down upon us.
Snow-fields glare at us with glistening eyes. Black crags seem to
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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 Jungle by Upton Sinclair: three of the little boy's fingers were permanently disabled, and another
that thereafter he always had to be beaten before he set out to work,
whenever there was fresh snow on the ground. Jurgis was called upon
to do the beating, and as it hurt his foot he did it with a vengeance;
but it did not tend to add to the sweetness of his temper. They say that
the best dog will turn cross if he be kept chained all the time, and it
was the same with the man; he had not a thing to do all day but lie and
curse his fate, and the time came when he wanted to curse everything.
This was never for very long, however, for when Ona began to cry,
Jurgis could not stay angry. The poor fellow looked like a homeless
ghost, with his cheeks sunken in and his long black hair straggling
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