| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: "commercial gentleman" of our day). "At length it travelled with
the English to America, where it is used to designate every citizen
indiscriminately. Its history is that of democracy itself." . . .
"If the middle classes of England, instead of making war upon the
aristocracy, have remained so intimately connected with it, it is
not especially because the aristocracy is open to all, but rather,
because its outline was indistinct, and its limit unknown: not so
much because any man might be admitted into it, as because it was
impossible to say with certainty when he took rank there: so that
all who approached it might look on themselves as belonging to it;
might take part in its rule, and derive either lustre or profit from
|
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 Voice of the City by O. Henry: Squire Pettigrew's pasture confirmed.
Ere the first violet blew, Mr. Peters, Mr. Ragsdale
and Mr. Kidd sat together on a bench in Union
Square and conspired. Mr. Peters was the D'Artag-
nan of the loafers there. He was the dingiest, the
laziest, the sorriest brown blot against the green back-
ground of any bench in the park. But just then he
was the most important of the trio.
Mr. Peters had a wife. This had not heretofore
affected his standing with Ragsy and Kidd. But to-
day it invested him with a peculiar interest. His
The Voice of the City |
