| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Moran of the Lady Letty by Frank Norris: of the ladder, punk-sticks were burning in an old tomato-can.
Charlie brought in supper--stewed beef and pork in a bread-pan and
a wooden kit--and the Chinamen ate in silence with their sheath-
knives and from tin plates. A liquid that bore a distant
resemblance to coffee was served. Wilbur learned afterward to
know the stuff as Black Jack, and to be aware that it was made
from bud barley and was sweetened with molasses. A single reeking
lamp swung with the swinging of the schooner over the centre of
the group, and long after Wilbur could remember the grisly scene--
the punk-sticks, the bread-pan full of hunks of meat, the horrid
close and oily smell, and the circle of silent, preoccupied
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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 Euthydemus by Plato: They have life, I said.
Then are they not animals?
They are animals, I said.
And you admitted that of animals those are yours which you could give away
or sell or offer in sacrifice, as you pleased?
I did admit that, Euthydemus, and I have no way of escape.
Well then, said he, if you admit that Zeus and the other gods are yours,
can you sell them or give them away or do what you will with them, as you
would with other animals?
At this I was quite struck dumb, Crito, and lay prostrate. Ctesippus came
to the rescue.
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