The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber: his salary these days, you bet. I used to think it was all getting
up when you felt like it, and sitting in the big front window of
the hotel, smoking a cigar and watching the pretty girls go by. I
wasn't wise to the packing, and the unpacking, and the rotten train
service, and the grouchy customers, and the canceled bills, and the
grub."
Pearlie nodded understandingly. "A man told me once that
twice a week regularly he dreamed of the way his wife cooked
noodle-soup."
"My folks are German," explained Sam. "And my mother--can she
cook! Well, I just don't seem able to get her potato pancakes out
 Buttered Side Down |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Betty Zane by Zane Grey: endeavored to get through the aperture. The awful axe swung by those steel
arms, dispatched both of than in the twinkling of an eye. Their bodies stuck
in the hole.
Silas and Alfred stood riveted to the spot. Just then Wetzel in all his
horrible glory was a sight to freeze the marrow of any man. He had cast aside
his hunting shirt in that run to the fence and was now stripped to the waist.
He was covered with blood. The muscles of his broad back and his brawny arms
swelled and rippled under the brown skin. At every swing of the gory axe he
let out a yell the like of which had never before been heard by the white men.
It was the hunter's mad yell of revenge. In his thirst for vengeance he had
forgotten that he was defending the Fort with its women and its children; he
 Betty Zane |