| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Main Street by Sinclair Lewis: The houses were black specks on a white sheet. Her heart
shivered with that still loneliness as her body shivered with
the wind.
She ran back into the huddle of streets, all the while
protesting that she wanted a city's yellow glare of shop-windows
and restaurants, or the primitive forest with hooded furs and
a rifle, or a barnyard warm and steamy, noisy with hens and
cattle, certainly not these dun houses, these yards choked with
winter ash-piles, these roads of dirty snow and clotted frozen
mud. The zest of winter was gone. Three months more, till
May, the cold might drag on, with the snow ever filthier, the
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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 Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett: soon have expected to hear small talk in a company of elephants as
to hear old Mr. Bowden or Elijah Tilley and their two mates waste
breath upon any form of trivial gossip. They made brief
statements to one another from time to time. As you came to know
them you wondered more and more that they should talk at all.
Speech seemed to be a light and elegant accomplishment, and their
unexpected acquaintance with its arts made them of new value to the
listener. You felt almost as if a landmark pine should suddenly
address you in regard to the weather, or a lofty-minded old camel
make a remark as you stood respectfully near him under the circus
tent.
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