| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson: trotted, and the rest walked at a vengeance of a pace. Twice, while we
were at top speed, we ran against country-folk; but though we plumped
into the first from round a corner, Alan was as ready as a loaded
musket.
"Has ye seen my horse?" he gasped.
"Na, man, I haenae seen nae horse the day," replied the countryman.
And Alan spared the time to explain to him that we were travelling
"ride and tie"; that our charger had escaped, and it was feared he had
gone home to Linton. Not only that, but he expended some breath (of
which he had not very much left) to curse his own misfortune and my
stupidity which was said to be its cause.
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The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: tigers; and a thousand other toys, if only he had had other
children to share them with him. But none of them pleased him.
They lacked that subtile something which was necessary to
minister to the peculiar genius of the child.
Among the foreign toys there were some in which there was
concealed a secret spring which seemed to impart life to the
otherwise dead plaything. Wind them up and they would move of
their own energy. This was what the boy needed,--something to
appeal to that machine-loving disposition which nature had given
him, and Budge and Toddy were never more curious to know "what
made the wheels go round" than was little Tsai Tien. He played
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