| 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: great bundles of clothing here to his home, where he and his wife
worked on them. He made a living at it, but it was getting
harder all the time, because his eyes were failing. What would
come when they gave out he could not tell; there had been no
saving anything--a man could barely keep alive by twelve or
fourteen hours' work a day. The finishing of pants did not take
much skill, and anybody could learn it, and so the pay was
forever getting less. That was the competitive wage system; and
if Jurgis wanted to understand what Socialism was, it was there
he had best begin. The workers were dependent upon a job to
exist from day to day, and so they bid against each other, and no
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Moran of the Lady Letty by Frank Norris: driving spoondrift, her cordage humming, her forefoot churning,
the flag at her peak straining stiff in the gale, came up into the
narrow passage of the Golden Gate, riding high upon the outgoing
tide. On she came, swinging from crest to crest of the waves that
kept her company and that ran to meet the ocean, shouting and
calling out beyond there under the low, scudding clouds.
Wilbur had climbed to the top of the old fort. Erect upon its
granite ledge he stood, and watched and waited.
Not once did the "Bertha Millner" falter in her race. Like an
unbitted horse, all restraint shaken off, she ran free toward the
ocean as to her pasture-land. She came nearer, nearer, rising and
|
