| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Faith of Men by Jack London: found she had no credit at the store. This was Thompson's doing,
and he rubbed his hands, and walked up and down, and came to his
door and looked up at Jees Uck's house and waited. And he
continued to wait. She sold her dog-team to a party of miners and
paid cash for her food. And when Thompson refused to honour even
her coin, Toyaat Indians made her purchases, and sledded them up to
her house in the dark.
In February the first post came in over the ice, and John Thompson
read in the society column of a five-months-old paper of the
marriage of Neil Bonner and Kitty Sharon. Jees Uck held the door
ajar and him outside while he imparted the information; and, when
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe: voyage, room for erecting their magazines, warehouses, rope walks,
cooperages, etc., on the easiest terms; and especially for the
noisome cookery, which attends the boiling their blubber, which may
be on this river (as it ought to be) remote from any places of
resort. Then their nearness to the market for the oil when it is
made, and which, above all, ought to be the chief thing considered
in that trade, the easiness of their putting out to sea when they
begin their voyage, in which the same wind that carries them from
the mouth of the haven, is fair to the very seas of Greenland.
I could say much more to this point if it were needful, and in few
words could easily prove, that Ipswich must have the preference of
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: Grandmother motioned me to the dining-room. I obeyed reluctantly.
I watched her as she came and went, carrying dishes.
Her lips were tightly compressed and she kept whispering to herself:
`Oh, dear Saviour!' `Lord, Thou knowest!'
Presently grandfather came in and spoke to me: `Jimmy, we will not
have prayers this morning, because we have a great deal to do.
Old Mr. Shimerda is dead, and his family are in great distress.
Ambrosch came over here in the middle of the night, and Jake and Otto
went back with him. The boys have had a hard night, and you must not
bother them with questions. That is Ambrosch, asleep on the bench.
Come in to breakfast, boys.'
My Antonia |
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 Sanitary and Social Lectures by Charles Kingsley: clothes. It had been better, to judge from the complexion, if
some of that money had been spent in solid wholesome food. She
looks as if she lived--as she too often does, I hear--on tea and
bread-and-butter, or rather on bread with the minimum of butter.
For as the want of bone indicates a deficiency of phosphatic food,
so does the want of flesh about the cheeks indicate a deficiency
of hydrocarbon. Poor little Nausicaa:- that is not her fault.
Our boasted civilisation has not even taught her what to eat, as
it certainly has not increased her appetite; and she knows not--
what every country fellow knows--that without plenty of butter and
other fatty matters, she is not likely to keep even warm. Better
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