| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Troll Garden and Selected Stories by Willa Cather: vacations at her mother's home in Maine. He had possessed for
her that almost hypnotic influence which young men sometimes
exert upon little girls. It was a sort of phantom love affair,
subjective and fanciful, a precocity of instinct, like that
tender and maternal concern which some little girls feel for
their dolls. Yet this childish infatuation is capable of all the
depressions and exaltations of love itself, it has its bitter
jealousies, cruel disappointments, its exacting caprices.
Summer after summer she had awaited his coming and wept at his
departure, indifferent to the gayer young men who had called her
their sweetheart and laughed at everything she said. Although
The Troll Garden and Selected Stories |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Horse's Tale by Mark Twain: the like exchanges with each other - ah, such a picture of cheery
contentment and glad anticipation! not a mean spirit, nor a sordid
soul, nor a sad heart there - ah, Thorndike, I wish I could see it
again.
"Suddenly, the martial note of a bugle cleaves the hum and murmur -
clear the ring!
"They clear it. The great gate is flung open, and the procession
marches in, splendidly costumed and glittering: the marshals of
the day, then the picadores on horseback, then the matadores on
foot, each surrounded by his quadrille of CHULOS. They march to
the box of the city fathers, and formally salute. The key is
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