| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Call of the Canyon by Zane Grey: it would have limitless significance. For one thing, the look of Glenn!
When had he ever seemed like this, wonderfully happy to have her there,
consciously proud of this dinner he had prepared in half an hour, strangely
studying her as one on trial? This might have had its effect upon Carley's
reaction to the situation, making it sweet, trenchant with meaning, but she
was hungry enough and the dinner was good enough to make this hour
memorable on that score alone. She ate until she was actually ashamed of
herself. She laughed heartily, she talked, she made love to Glenn. Then
suddenly an idea flashed into her quick mind.
"Glenn, did this girl Flo teach you to cook?" she queried, sharply.
"No. I always was handy in camp. Then out here I had the luck to fall in
The Call of the Canyon |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from One Basket by Edna Ferber: close that the bed- room was in twilight even at midday. On the
farm he could tell by the feeling--an intangible thing, but
infallible. He could gauge the very quality of the blackness
that comes just before dawn. The crowing of the cocks, the
stamping of the cattle, the twittering of the birds in the old
elm whose branches were etched eerily against his window in the
ghostly light --these things he had never needed. He had known.
But here in the un- sylvan section of Chicago which bears the
bosky name of Englewood, the very darkness had a strange quality.
A hundred unfamiliar noises misled him. There were no cocks, no
cattle, no elm. Above all, there was no instinctive feeling.
One Basket |
