| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson: England, what aileth them to shoot thus cruelly on their poor
country people in distress?"
"They take us to be French pirates," answered Lord Foxham. "In
these most troublesome and degenerate days we cannot keep our own
shores of England; but our old enemies, whom we once chased on sea
and land, do now range at pleasure, robbing and slaughtering and
burning. It is the pity and reproach of this poor land."
The men upon the hillock lay, closely observing them, while they
trailed upward from the beach and wound inland among desolate sand-
hills; for a mile or so they even hung upon the rear of the march,
ready, at a sign, to pour another volley on the weary and
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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 Dynamiter by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson: circumstance divines a world.'
'Just so,' said Challoner; 'and I am delighted that you
should recognise these virtues in yourself. But in the
meanwhile, dear boy, I own myself incapable of joining. I
was neither born nor bred as a detective, but as a placable
and very thirsty gentleman; and, for my part, I begin to
weary for a drink. As for clues and adventures, the only
adventure that is ever likely to occur to me will be an
adventure with a bailiff.'
'Now there is the fallacy,' cried Somerset. 'There I catch
the secret of your futility in life. The world teems and
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