| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: differential with grease, out of pure love of mechanics and filthiness, she
rejoiced that he was "so handy around the house--and helping his father and
all, and not going out with the girls all the time and trying to pretend he
was a society fellow."
Babbitt loved his mother, and sometimes he rather liked her, but he was
annoyed by her Christian Patience, and he was reduced to pulpiness when she
discoursed about a quite mythical hero called "Your Father":
"You won't remember it, Georgie, you were such a little fellow at the
time--my, I remember just how you looked that day, with your goldy brown curls
and your lace collar, you always were such a dainty child, and kind of puny
and sickly, and you loved pretty things so much and the red tassels on your
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: dust" until he got it. My wife tells me that not infrequently
when she called at the Chinese homes, and they set before her a
dish of which she was especially fond, and she had eaten of it as
much as she thought she ought, the ladies would ask in a
good-natured way in reply to some of her remarks about her
voracious appetite, "Shall we get down and knock our heads on the
floor, and beg you not to eat too much, and make yourself sick,
like the eunuchs do to the Emperor?" There is nothing to wonder
at that Kuang Hsu, without parental restraint, and fawned upon by
cringing eunuchs and serving maids, should have been a spoiled
child; the wonder is that he was not worse than he was.
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey: steers. Here was the milling of the herd. The white running
circle closed in upon the open space of sage. And the dust
circles closed above into a pall. The ground quaked and the
incessant thunder of pounding hoofs rolled on. Jane felt
deafened, yet she thrilled to a new sound. As the circle of sage
lessened the steers began to bawl, and when it closed entirely
there came a great upheaval in the center, and a terrible
thumping of heads and clicking of horns. Bawling, climbing,
goring, the great mass of steers on the inside wrestled in a
crashing din, heaved and groaned under the pressure. Then came a
deadlock. The inner strife ceased, and the hideous roar and
Riders of the Purple Sage |
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 Iron Puddler by James J. Davis: of Blood," through the "Greasy Spoon" to a seat at the cherished
"Pie" table. Here the cups were so thin that you couldn't break a
man's head with them. I was steadily rising in the social world.
CHAPTER XXVIII
CAUGHT IN A SOUTHERN PEONAGE CAMP
It was while I was in Birmingham that the industrial depression
reached rock bottom. In the depth of this industrial paralysis
the iron workers of Birmingham struck for better pay. I, with a
train load of other strikers, went to Louisiana and the whole
bunch of us were practically forced into peonage. It was a case
of "out of the frying pan into the fire." We had been saying that
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