| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from McTeague by Frank Norris: as the Mexican maid-of-all-work went to and fro in the
suite, sweeping or carrying away the ashes. Occasionally in
the windows of the "Parlors" she beheld McTeague's rounded
back as he bent to his work. Sometimes, even, they saw each
other and waved their hands gayly in recognition.
By eleven o'clock Trina returned to the flat, her brown net
reticule--once her mother's--full of parcels. At once she
set about getting lunch--sausages, perhaps, with mashed
potatoes; or last evening's joint warmed over or made into a
stew; chocolate, which Trina adored, and a side dish or two
--a salted herring or a couple of artichokes or a salad. At
McTeague |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Emma McChesney & Co. by Edna Ferber: dinners would have accomplished the deadly work.
"T. A.," she said one evening, after a particularly large
affair of this sort, "T. A., have you ever noticed anything
about me that is different from other women?"
"Have I? Well, I should say I----"
"Oh, I don't mean what you mean, dear-- thanks just the same. I
mean those women tonight. They all seem to `go in' for something
--votes or charity or dancing or social service, or
something--even the girls. And they all sounded so amateurish,
so untrained, so unprepared, yet they seemed to be dreadfully in
earnest."
Emma McChesney & Co. |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Profits of Religion by Upton Sinclair: willing to work and begging for a chance, yet starving, and
fronting with terror the awful winter cold! Tonight in Chicago
there are a hundred thousand children wearing out their strength
and blasting their lives in the effort to earn their bread! There
are a hundred thousand mothers who are living in misery and
squalor, struggling to earn enough to feed their little ones!
There are a hundred thousand old people, cast off and helpless,
waiting for death to take them from their torments! There are a
million people, men and women and children, who share the curse
of the wage-slave; who toil every hour they can stand and see,
for just enough to keep them alive; who are condemned till the
|
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 Life in the Iron-Mills by Rebecca Davis: man Christ was thrown up from the lowest of the people: his
flesh, their flesh; their blood, his blood; tempted like them,
to brutalize day by day; to lie, to steal: the actual slime and
want of their hourly life, and the wine-press he trod alone.
Yet, is there no meaning in this perpetually covered truth? If
the son of the carpenter had stood in the church that night, as
he stood with the fishermen and harlots by the sea of Galilee,
before His Father and their Father, despised and rejected of
men, without a place to lay His head, wounded for their
iniquities, bruised for their transgressions, would not that
hungry mill-boy at least, in the back seat, have "known the
Life in the Iron-Mills |
