| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair: is the way?"
"Why don't yer say so then?" was the response, and the boy pointed
to the northwest, across the tracks. "That way."
"How far is it?" Jurgis asked. "I dunno," said the other.
"Mebbe twenty miles or so."
"Twenty miles!" Jurgis echoed, and his face fell. He had to walk
every foot of it, for they had turned him out of jail without a penny
in his pockets.
Yet, when he once got started, and his blood had warmed with walking,
he forgot everything in the fever of his thoughts. All the dreadful
imaginations that had haunted him in his cell now rushed into his
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: the possessor. Consider the matter thus:--Must we not, when we intend
either to do or say anything, suppose that we know or ought to know that
which we propose so confidently to do or say?
ALCIBIADES: Yes, in my opinion.
SOCRATES: We may take the orators for an example, who from time to time
advise us about war and peace, or the building of walls and the
construction of harbours, whether they understand the business in hand, or
only think that they do. Whatever the city, in a word, does to another
city, or in the management of her own affairs, all happens by the counsel
of the orators.
ALCIBIADES: True.
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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 The Call of the Canyon by Zane Grey: tinkle, then the ring of steel on stirrup, a sodden leathery sound as he
mounted, and after that a rapid pound of hoofs, quickly dying away.
He was gone. She had escaped something raw and violent. Dazedly she
realized it, with unutterable relief. And she sat there slowly gathering
the nervous force that had been shattered. Every word that he had uttered
was stamped in startling characters upon her consciousness. But she was
still under the deadening influence of shock. This raw experience was the
worst the West had yet dealt her. It brought back former states of
revulsion and formed them in one whole irrefutable and damning judgment
that seemed to blot out the vaguely dawning and growing happy
susceptibilities. It was, perhaps, just as well to have her mind reverted
The Call of the Canyon |
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 Vision Splendid by William MacLeod Raine: His impatience reached words. "That sort of talk is nonsense,
Alice. I don't know what has come over you of late."
She smiled provokingly and changed the subject. Why argue with
him? The slant with which they got at things was different. Like
her father, he had the mental rigidity that is death to open-
mindedness.
Briskly she returned to small talk. "You're only three up."
Part 4
On their way back to the club house the safe man recurred to one
phase of their talk.
"You ought not to need any telling as to why I work, Alice."
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