| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane: Jimmie grew large enough to take the vague position of head of
the family. As incumbent of that office, he stumbled up-stairs
late at night, as his father had done before him. He reeled about
the room, swearing at his relations, or went to sleep on the floor.
The mother had gradually arisen to that degree of fame that
she could bandy words with her acquaintances among the police-
justices. Court-officials called her by her first name. When she
appeared they pursued a course which had been theirs for months.
They invariably grinned and cried out: "Hello, Mary, you here
again?" Her grey head wagged in many a court. She always besieged
the bench with voluble excuses, explanations, apologies and
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets |
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 In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: known as "eagle" but is far more the property of the female than that most
unoffending of birds. "I think you are English?" she said. I acknowledged
the fact. "I am reading a great many English books just now--rather, I am
studying them."
"Nu," cried Herr Erchardt. "Fancy that! What a bond already! I have made
up my mind to know Shakespeare in his mother tongue before I die, but that
you, Frau Professor, should be already immersed in those wells of English
thought!"
"From what I have read," she said, "I do not think they are very deep
wells."
He nodded sympathetically.
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