| 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: came on quickly when the sun got low, and Antonia's dress was thin.
What were we to do with the frail little creature we had lured
back to life by false pretences? I offered my pockets, but Tony
shook her head and carefully put the green insect in her hair,
tying her big handkerchief down loosely over her curls.
I said I would go with her until we could see Squaw Creek,
and then turn and run home. We drifted along lazily, very happy,
through the magical light of the late afternoon.
All those fall afternoons were the same, but I never got used to them.
As far as we could see, the miles of copper-red grass were
drenched in sunlight that was stronger and fiercer than at any
My Antonia |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: who is my delight; and do you give the other to Lysias, who is yours.
PHAEDRUS: I will; and now as the heat is abated let us depart.
SOCRATES: Should we not offer up a prayer first of all to the local
deities?
PHAEDRUS: By all means.
SOCRATES: Beloved Pan, and all ye other gods who haunt this place, give me
beauty in the inward soul; and may the outward and inward man be at one.
May I reckon the wise to be the wealthy, and may I have such a quantity of
gold as a temperate man and he only can bear and carry.--Anything more?
The prayer, I think, is enough for me.
PHAEDRUS: Ask the same for me, for friends should have all things in
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