| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy: company with these lighter moods. Like all people who have
known rough times, light-heartedness seemed to her too
irrational and inconsequent to be indulged in except as a
reckless dram now and then; for she had been too early
habituated to anxious reasoning to drop the habit suddenly.
She felt none of those ups and downs of spirit which beset
so many people without cause; never--to paraphrase a recent
poet--never a gloom in Elizabeth-Jane's soul but she well
knew how it came there; and her present cheerfulness was
fairly proportionate to her solid guarantees for the same.
It might have been supposed that, given a girl rapidly
 The Mayor of Casterbridge |
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 Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: Babbitt-Thompson Realty Company. I'm a great friend of Jake Offutt's."
"Well, what of it?"
"Say, uh, I'm going to have a party, and Jake told me you'd be able to fix me
up with a little gin." In alarm, in obsequiousness, as Hanson's eyes grew
more bored, "You telephone to Jake about me, if you want to."
Hanson answered by jerking his head to indicate the entrance to the back room,
and strolled away. Babbitt melodramatically crept into an apartment
containing four round tables, eleven chairs, a brewery calendar, and a smell.
He waited. Thrice he saw Healey Hanson saunter through, humming, hands in
pockets, ignoring him.
By this time Babbitt had modified his valiant morning vow, "I won't pay one
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