| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: hot, he sought the less tense society of others.
Archie found himself alone. The last of the faithful - or was it only
the boldest of the curious? - had fled. He watched the black huddle of
his fellow-students draw off down and up the street, in whispering or
boisterous gangs. And the isolation of the moment weighed upon him like
an omen and an emblem of his destiny in life. Bred up in unbroken fear
himself, among trembling servants, and in a house which (at the least
ruffle in the master's voice) shuddered into silence, he saw himself on
the brink of the red valley of war, and measured the danger and length
of it with awe. He made a detour in the glimmer and shadow of the
streets, came into the back stable lane, and watched for a long while
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain: rude and fantastic Indian paintings, which they describe.
A short distance below 'a torrent of yellow mud rushed furiously
athwart the calm blue current of the Mississippi, boiling and surging
and sweeping in its course logs, branches, and uprooted trees.'
This was the mouth of the Missouri, 'that savage river,'
which 'descending from its mad career through a vast unknown
of barbarism, poured its turbid floods into the bosom of
its gentle sister.'
By and by they passed the mouth of the Ohio; they passed cane-brakes;
they fought mosquitoes; they floated along, day after day,
through the deep silence and loneliness of the river, drowsing in
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