| 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: grocer on the corner.
From her childhood she had hated it, that humiliating and
uncertain existence, with its glib tongue and empty pockets, its
poetic ideals and sordid realities, its indolence and poverty
tricked out in paper roses. Even as a little girl, when vague
dreams beset her, when she wanted to lie late in bed and commune
with visions, or to leap and sing because the sooty little trees
along the street were putting out their first pale leaves in the
sunshine, she would clench her hands and go to help her mother
sponge the spots from her father's waistcoat or press Heinrich's
trousers. Her mother never permitted the slightest question
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 The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: covers for the winter; even the pictures wore shrouds. And in a
niche between two windows a bust on a pedestal, similarly wrapped,
one arm extended under its winding sheet, made a most life-like
ghost, if any ghost can be life-like.
In the light of the candle we surveyed each other, and we were
objects for mirth. Hotchkiss was taking off his sodden shoes and
preparing to make himself comfortable, while I hung my muddy
raincoat over the ghost in the corner. Thus habited, he presented
a rakish but distinctly more comfortable appearance.
"When these people built," Hotchkiss said, surveying the huge
dimensions of the room, "they must have bought a mountain and built
The Man in Lower Ten |
