| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Fanny Herself by Edna Ferber: careworn and older than she had ever thought possible; his
bearing, his features, his whole personality stamped with an
unmistakable distinction. And his clothes were appallingly,
inconceivably German. So she saw him, and he was her
brother, and she was his sister, and she stretched out her
arms to him.
"Teddy!" She hugged him close, her face buried in his
shoulder. "Teddy, you--you Spitzbube you!" She laughed
at that, a little hysterically. "Not that I know what a
Spitzbube is, but it's the Germanest word I can think of."
That shaven head. Those trousers. That linen. The awful
Fanny Herself |
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 My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass: I say nothing of _father_, for he is shrouded in a mystery I have
never been able to penetrate. Slavery does away with fathers, as
it does away with families. Slavery has no use for either
fathers or families, and its laws do not recognize their
existence in the social arrangements of the plantation. When
they _do_ exist, they are not the outgrowths of slavery, but are
antagonistic to that system. The order of civilization is
reversed here. The name of the child is not expected to be that
of its father, and his condition does not necessarily affect that
of the child. He may be the slave of Mr. Tilgman; and his child,
when born, may be the slave of Mr. Gross. He may be a _freeman;_
My Bondage and My Freedom |
