| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: freedom--should she show less magnanimity than she had exacted?
Magnanimity? The word lashed her with its irony--one does not
strike an attitude when one is fighting for life! She would
threaten, grovel, cajole . . . she would yield anything to keep
her hold on happiness. Ah, but the difficulty lay deeper! The
law could not help her--her own apostasy could not help her. She
was the victim of the theories she renounced. It was as though
some giant machine of her own making had caught her up in its
wheels and was grinding her to atoms. . .
It was afternoon when she found herself out-of-doors. She walked
with an aimless haste, fearing to meet familiar faces. The day
|
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 Tales of the Klondyke by Jack London: it was said that a man must go forth to the Salt Water and tell to
the world our misery. At this all eyes turned to me, for it was
understood that I was a great traveler. 'It is seven hundred
miles,' said I, 'to Haines Mission by the sea, and every inch of
it snowshoe work. Give me the pick of your dogs and the best of
your grub, and I will go. And with me shall go Passuk.'
"To this they were agreed. But there arose one, Long Jeff, a
Yankee-man, big-boned and big-muscled. Also his talk was big.
He, too, was a mighty traveler, he said, born to the snowshoe and
bred up on buffalo milk. He would go with me, in case I fell by
the trail, that he might carry the word on to the Mission. I was
|
