| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: and cleaning, devices to propitiate the tongue of gossip.
This guarded mode of existence was like living under a tyranny.
People's speech, their voices, their very glances, became furtive
and repressed. Every individual taste, every natural appetite,
was bridled by caution. The people asleep in those houses,
I thought, tried to live like the mice in their own kitchens;
to make no noise, to leave no trace, to slip over the surface
of things in the dark. The growing piles of ashes and cinders
in the back yards were the only evidence that the wasteful,
consuming process of life went on at all. On Tuesday nights
the Owl Club danced; then there was a little stir in the streets,
My Antonia |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: leading him.
"It belongs to my son," she said. "I'll fix it with him to-morrow.
But if you're caught you'll have to say you came out and took him,
or you'll get us all in trouble."
She gave him careful instructions as to how to find the trail, and
urged him to haste.
"If you get him," she advised, "better keep right on over the range."
He paused, with his foot in the stirrup.
"You seem pretty certain he's taken to the mountains."
"It's your only chance. They'll get him anywhere else."
He mounted and prepared to ride off. He would have shaken hands
The Breaking Point |
