The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from House of Mirth by Edith Wharton: in the centre of a great glare of comprehension. The little
confidential room, where a moment ago their thoughts had touched
elbows like their chairs, grew to unfriendly vastness, separating
her from Selden by all the length of her new vision of the
future--and that future stretched out interminably, with her
lonely figure toiling down it, a mere speck on the solitude.
"She is herself with a few people only; and you are one of them,"
she heard Selden saying. And again: "Be good to her, Gerty, won't
you?" and: "She has it in her to become whatever she is believed
to be--you'll help her by believing the best of her?"
The words beat on Gerty's brain like the sound of a language
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Troll Garden and Selected Stories by Willa Cather: enough, once I got beyond Chicago. Of course I got awful homesick;
used to cry myself to sleep. But I'd burned my bridges."
"You had always wanted to go, hadn't you?"
"Always. Do you still sleep in our little room? Is that
cottonwood still by the window?"
Eric nodded eagerly and smiled up at his brother in the grey
darkness.
"You remember how we always said the leaves were whispering
when they rustled at night? Well, they always whispered to me
about the sea. Sometimes they said names out of the geography
books. In a high wind they had a desperate sound, like someone
 The Troll Garden and Selected Stories |