| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair: for anything. If they couldn't do it, let them go somewhere else.
Jurgis had not studied the books, and he would not have known how to
pronounce "laissez faire"; but he had been round the world enough to know
that a man has to shift for himself in it, and that if he gets the worst
of it, there is nobody to listen to him holler.
Yet there have been known to be philosophers and plain men who swore by
Malthus in the books, and would, nevertheless, subscribe to a relief fund
in time of a famine. It was the same with Jurgis, who consigned the
unfit to destruction, while going about all day sick at heart because of
his poor old father, who was wandering somewhere in the yards begging for
a chance to earn his bread. Old Antanas had been a worker ever since he
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Light of Western Stars by Zane Grey: Stewart's face
"Are you afraid?" she asked.
"Yes," he replied, simply.
Then the thunderbolt racked the heavens, and as it boomed away in
lessening power Madeline reflected with surprise upon Stewart's
answer. Something in his face had made her ask him what she
considered a foolish question. His reply amazed her. She loved
a storm. Why should he fear it--he, with whom she could not
associate fear?
"How strange! Have you not been out in many storms?"
A smile that was only a gleam flitted over his dark face.
The Light of Western Stars |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: and to guard. Power of the sceptre and shield; the power of the
royal hand that heals in touching,--that binds the fiend, and looses
the captive; the throne that is founded on the rock of Justice, and
descended from only by steps of Mercy. Will you not covet such
power as this, and seek such throne as this, and be no more
housewives, but queens?
It is now long since the women of England arrogated, universally, a
title which once belonged to nobility only; and, having once been in
the habit of accepting the simple title of gentlewoman as
correspondent to that of gentleman, insisted on the privilege of
assuming the title of "Lady," {27} which properly corresponds only
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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 Droll Stories, V. 1 by Honore de Balzac: who has been in the open air! The others seeing the cardinal return,
imagined that he had emptied his natural reservoirs, unburdened his
ecclesiastical bowels, and believed him happy. Then the surgeon rose
quickly, as if to take note of the tapestries and count the rafters,
but gained the door before anyone else, and relaxing his sphincter in
advance, he hummed a tune on his way to the retreat; arrived there he
was compelled, like La Balue, to murmur words of excuse to this
student of perpetual motion, shutting the door with as promptitude as
he opened it; and he came back burdened with an accumulation which
seriously impeded his private channels. And in the same way went to
guests one after the other, without being able to unburden themselves
Droll Stories, V. 1 |
