| 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: were forgotten in his mature achievements, but his brother had
never been able to outrun Proserpine, and here he found it
again in the Colorado sand hills. Not that Everett was exactly
ashamed of Proserpine; only a man of genius could have
written it, but it was the sort of thing that a man of genius
outgrows as soon as he can.
Everett unbent a trifle and smiled at his neighbor across
the aisle. Immediately the large man rose and, coming over,
dropped into the seat facing Hilgarde, extending his card.
"Dusty ride, isn't it? I don't mind it myself; I'm used to
it. Born and bred in de briar patch, like Br'er Rabbit. I've
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 Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: they in their minds when they thus, in thought, identified
themselves with their ancestral enemies? What was the sense in
which they were Scotch and not English, or Scotch and not Irish?
Can a bare name be thus influential on the minds and affections of
men, and a political aggregation blind them to the nature of facts?
The story of the Austrian Empire would seem to answer, NO; the far
more galling business of Ireland clenches the negative from nearer
home. Is it common education, common morals, a common language or
a common faith, that join men into nations? There were practically
none of these in the case we are considering.
The fact remains: in spite of the difference of blood and language,
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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 Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: society, it was difficult to find an hour of confidential
solitude when, sitting with their feet on the fire-dogs and their
head resting on the back of an armchair, two men tell each other
their secrets. At last, seven years later, after the Revolution
of 1830, when the mob invaded the Archbishop's residence, when
Republican agitators spurred them on to destroy the gilt crosses
which flashed like streaks of lightning in the immensity of the
ocean of houses; when Incredulity flaunted itself in the streets,
side by side with Rebellion, Bianchon once more detected Desplein
going into Saint-Sulpice. The doctor followed him, and knelt down
by him without the slightest notice or demonstration of surprise
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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 King of the Golden River by John Ruskin: rain in the little valley; and its crops were so heavy, and its hay
so high, and its apples so red, and its grapes so blue, and its wine
so rich, and its honey so sweet, that it was a marvel to everyone
who beheld it and was commonly called the Treasure Valley.
The whole of this little valley belonged to three brothers,
called Schwartz, Hans, and Gluck. Schwartz and Hans, the two elder
brothers, were very ugly men, with overhanging eyebrows and small,
dull eyes which were always half shut, so that you couldn't see into
THEM and always fancied they saw very far into YOU. They lived by
farming the Treasure Valley, and very good farmers they were. They
killed everything that did not pay for its eating. They shot the
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