| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lin McLean by Owen Wister: encouraged by drink, had come across the doctor, delayed him, threatened
him with his pistol, and when he had torn it away, had left him suddenly
and vanished. But Barker had feared, and come after him here. He glanced
at the woman slumbering motionless beside the two men. The husband's
brief courage had gone, and he lay beneath McLean, who himself could not
rise. Barker pulled them apart.
"Lin, boy, you're not hurt?" he asked, affectionately, and lifted the
cow-puncher.
McLean sat passive, with dazed eyes, letting himself be supported.
"You're not hurt?" repeated Barker.
"No," answered the cow-puncher, slowly. "I guess not." He looked about
|
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 Market-Place by Harold Frederic: was really the worst followed naturally in its wake,
and occupied its accustomed half-hour--complicated, however,
upon this occasion, by the chance presence of a loquacious
stranger who said he lived on the Chatham-and-Dover,
and who rejected boisterously the idea that any other
railway could be half so bad.
The intrusion of this outsider aroused instant resentment,
and the champions of the South Eastern and the Brighton,
having piled up additional defenses in the shape of
personal recollections of delay and mismanagement quite
beyond belief, made a combined attack upon the newcomer.
The Market-Place |
