| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from One Basket by Edna Ferber: shrunken and faded with years and labor. As the girl minced
across the room in her absurdly high-heeled shoes, the older
woman thought: My, but she's pretty! But she said aloud: "I
should think you'd stay home once in a while and not be runnin'
the streets every night."
"Time enough to be sittin' home when I'm old like you."
And yet between these two there was love, and even understanding.
But in families such as Tessie's, demonstration is a thing to be
ashamed of; affection a thing to conceal. Tessie's father was
janitor of the Chippewa High School. A powerful man, slightly
crippled by rheumatism, loquacious, lively, fond of his family,
 One Basket |
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 Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: judging; he had criticised effects and done nothing for causes; his
head was full of plans such as a political party lays upon the
shoulders of a leader,--matters of private interest brought to an
orator supposed to have a future, a jumble of schemes and impractical
requests. Far from coming fresh to his work, he was wearied out with
marching and counter-marching, and when he finally reached the much
desired height of his present position, he found himself in a thicket
of thorny bushes with a thousand conflicting wills to conciliate. If
the statesmen of the Restoration had been allowed to follow out their
own ideas, their capacity would doubtless have been criticised; but
though their wills were often forced, their age saved them from
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