| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair: are nearly twice as efficient as those of any other country. If we
are the greatest nation the sun ever shone upon, it would seem to be
mainly because we have been able to goad our wage-earners to this
pitch of frenzy; though there are a few other things that are great
among us including our drink-bill, which is a billion and a quarter
of dollars a year, and doubling itself every decade.
There was a machine which stamped out the iron plates, and then
another which, with a mighty thud, mashed them to the shape of the
sitting-down portion of the American farmer. Then they were piled
upon a truck, and it was Jurgis's task to wheel them to the room
where the machines were "assembled." This was child's play for him,
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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 Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart: of your age ought to have better sense." It usually braces Liddy
to mention her age: she owns to forty--which is absurd. Her
mother cooked for my grandfather, and Liddy must be at least as
old as I. But that night she refused to brace.
"You're not going to ask me to lock up, Miss Rachel!" she
quavered. "Why, there's a dozen French windows in the drawing-
room and the billiard-room wing, and every one opens on a porch.
And Mary Anne said that last night there was a man standing by
the stable when she locked the kitchen door."
"Mary Anne was a fool," I said sternly. "If there had been a man
there, she would have had him in the kitchen and been feeding him
 The Circular Staircase |