| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: must have been temporarily insane. Next day Paul was sentenced to three years
in the State Penitentiary and taken off--quite undramatically, not handcuffed,
merely plodding in a tired way beside a cheerful deputy sheriff--and after
saying good-by to him at the station Babbitt returned to his office to realize
that he faced a world which, without Paul, was meaningless.
CHAPTER XXIII
I
HE was busy, from March to June. He kept himself from the bewilderment of
thinking. His wife and the neighbors were generous. Every evening he played
bridge or attended the movies, and the days were blank of face and silent.
In June, Mrs. Babbitt and Tinka went East, to stay with relatives, and Babbitt
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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 Mountains by Stewart Edward White: lofty as the sky, shrouded in a calm and stately peace.
Next day the Tenderfoot and I climbed to the
top. Wes decided at the last minute that he hadn't
lost any mountains, and would prefer to fish.
The ascent was accompanied by much breathlessness
and a heavy pounding of our hearts, so that we
were forced to stop every twenty feet to recover our
physical balance. Each step upward dragged at our
feet like a leaden weight. Yet once we were on the
level, or once we ceased our very real exertions for a
second or so, the difficulty left us, and we breathed
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