The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tom Grogan by F. Hopkinson Smith: the winter storms set in.
The shanty--a temporary structure, good only for the life of the
work--rested on a set of stringers laid on extra piles driven
outside of the working-platform. When the submarine work lies
miles from shore, a shanty is the only shelter for the men, its
interior being arranged with sleeping-bunks, with one end
partitioned off for a kitchen and a storage-room. This last is
filled with perishable property, extra blocks, Manila rope,
portable forges, tools, shovels, and barrows.
For this present sea-wall--an amphibious sort of structure, with
one foot on land and the other in the water--the shanty was of
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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 Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy: There were rencounters accidental and contrived, stealthy
correspondence, sudden misgivings on one side, sudden self-
reproaches on the other. The inner state of the twain was one as
of confused noise that would not allow the accents of calmer
reason to be heard. Determinations to go in this direction, and
headlong plunges in that; dignified safeguards, undignified
collapses; not a single rash step by deliberate intention, and all
against judgment.
It was all that Melbury had expected and feared. It was more, for
he had overlooked the publicity that would be likely to result, as
it now had done. What should he do--appeal to Mrs. Charmond
 The Woodlanders |