| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from First Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: in the right? If the Almighty Ruler of Nations, with his eternal
truth and justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours
of the South, that truth and that justice will surely prevail,
by the judgment of this great tribunal, the American people.
By the frame of the government under which we live, this same people
have wisely given their public servants but little power for mischief;
and have, with equal wisdom, provided for the return of that little
to their own hands at very short intervals. While the people retain
their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of
wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government
in the short space of four years.
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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: another, a vaulted tomb, handsome externally but horrible
inside with damp and cobwebs, there were three mounds of
black earth and an uncovered thigh bone. This was the
place of interment, it appeared, of a family with whom
the gardener had been long in service. He was among old
acquaintances. 'This'll be Miss Marg'et's,' said he,
giving the bone a friendly kick. 'The auld - !' I have
always an uncomfortable feeling in a graveyard, at sight
of so many tombs to perpetuate memories best forgotten;
but I never had the impression so strongly as that day.
People had been at some expense in both these cases: to
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