| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Iron Puddler by James J. Davis: my books out the window, aiming them at my head. They threw me my
hat and coat and my valise, and I departed from the Bucket of
Blood, and took up my abode at "The Greasy Spoon."
CHAPTER XXVI
A GRUB REFORMER PUTS US OUT OF GRUB
The Greasy Spoon isn't an appetizing name; not appetizing to
men who live a sedentary life. But it was meant as a lure to men
who live by muscular toil. It sounded good to us mill workers
for, like Eskimos, we craved much fat in our diet. We were great
muscular machines, and fat was the fuel for our engines.
Muckraking was just beginning in those days, and a prying
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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 Gentle Grafter by O. Henry: farming section we ever see. About two miles away on a hill was a big
white house in a grove surrounded by a wide-spread agricultural
agglomeration of fields and barns and pastures and out-houses.
"'Whose house is that?' we asked the landlord.
"'That,' says he, 'is the domicile and the arboreal, terrestrial and
horticultural accessories of Farmer Ezra Plunkett, one of our
country's most progressive citizens.'
"After breakfast me and Andy, with eight cents capital left, casts the
horoscope of the rural potentate.
"'Let me go alone,' says I. 'Two of us against one farmer would look
as one-sided as Roosevelt using both hands to kill a grizzly.'
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