| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from War and the Future by H. G. Wells: you enormously. Sometimes there is something more terrible than
dignity; there is condescension. They are affable. I had but
recently had an encounter with an imported Colonial statesman,
who was being advertised like a soap as the coming saviour of
England. I was curious to meet him. I wanted to talk to him
about all sorts of things that would have been profoundly
interesting, as for example his impressions of the Anglican
bishops. But I met a hoarding. I met a thing like a mask,
something surrounded by touts, that was dully trying--as we say
in London--to "come it" over me. He said he had heard of me. He
had read /Kipps./ I intimated that though I had written
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Edingburgh Picturesque Notes by Robert Louis Stevenson: rounding in the labours of the day.
CHAPTER IX.
WINTER AND NEW YEAR.
THE Scotch dialect is singularly rich in terms of
reproach against the winter wind. SNELL, BLAE, NIRLY,
and SCOWTHERING, are four of these significant vocables;
they are all words that carry a shiver with them; and for
my part, as I see them aligned before me on the page, I
am persuaded that a big wind comes tearing over the Firth
from Burntisland and the northern hills; I think I can
hear it howl in the chimney, and as I set my face
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