| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Just Folks by Edgar A. Guest: When I've laughed my way through summer, reap the biggest crop of oats.
Laughter's good for any business, leastwise so it seems to me
Never knew a smilin' feller but was busy as could be.
Sometimes sit an' think about it, ponderin' on the ways of life,
Wonderin' why mortals gladly face the toil an care an' strife,
Then I come to this conclusion--take it now for what it's worth
It's the joy of laughter keeps us plodding on this stretch of earth.
Men the fun o' life are seeking--that's the reason for the calf
Spillin' mash upon his keeper--men are hungry for a laugh.
The Scoffer
If I had lived in Franklin's time I'm most afraid that I,
 Just Folks |
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 Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbot: when one of my own Hexagonal Grandsons pleads as an excuse
for his disobedience that a sudden change of the temperature has been
too much for his Perimeter, and that I ought to lay the blame
not on him but on his Configuration, which can only be strengthened
by abundance of the choicest sweetmeats, I neither see my way
logically to reject, nor practically to accept, his conclusions.
For my own part, I find it best to assume that a good sound scolding
or castigation has some latent and strengthening influence on
my Grandson's Configuration; though I own that I have no grounds
for thinking so. At all events I am not alone in my way
of extricating myself from this dilemma; for I find that many
 Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions |