| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Tapestried Chamber by Walter Scott: deeply censured, than in proportion to the good or bad judgment
which he has employed in selecting his materials, as he has
studiously avoided any attempt at ornament which might interfere
with the simplicity of the tale.
At the same time, it must be admitted that the particular class
of stories which turns on the marvellous possesses a stronger
influence when told than when committed to print. The volume
taken up at noonday, though rehearsing the same incidents,
conveys a much more feeble impression than is achieved by the
voice of the speaker on a circle of fireside auditors, who hang
upon the narrative as the narrator details the minute incidents
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: indeed, I do not think I remember anywhere else so great a choice
of services as were here offered to the devout. And while the
bells made merry in the sunshine, all the world with his dog was
out shooting among the beets and colza.
In the morning a hawker and his wife went down the street at a
foot-pace, singing to a very slow, lamentable music 'O FRANCE, MES
AMOURS.' It brought everybody to the door; and when our landlady
called in the man to buy the words, he had not a copy of them left.
She was not the first nor the second who had been taken with the
song. There is something very pathetic in the love of the French
people, since the war, for dismal patriotic music-making. I have
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