| 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: Yes, it is, sir," broke in the man excitedly. "It's the
Marriage itself. It ayn't agoing to H'Australia, no'ow!"
"But man, what are you going to do with it? It's
Lichtenstein's property now, as it seems."
It ayn't, sir, that it ayn't. No, by Gawd, it ayn't!"
shouted James, breaking into a choking fury. He controlled
himself with an effort and added supplicatingly: "Oh, sir, you
ayn't agoing to see it go to H'Australia, w'ere they send
convic's?" He unpinned and flung aside the sheets as though to
let Phaedra plead for herself.
MacMaster sat down again and looked sadly at the doomed
 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 Last War: A World Set Free by H. G. Wells: sex made society, that the first society was the sex-cemented
family, the first state a confederacy of blood relations, the
first laws sexual taboos. Until a few years ago morality meant
proper sexual behaviour. Up to within a few years of us the
chief interest and motive of an ordinary man was to keep and rule
a woman and her children and the chief concern of a woman was to
get a man to do that. That was the drama, that was life. And the
jealousy of these demands was the master motive in the world. You
said, Kahn, a little while ago that sexual love was the key that
let one out from the solitude of self, but I tell you that so far
it has only done so in order to lock us all up again in a
 The Last War: A World Set Free |