| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Chronicles of the Canongate by Walter Scott: father. If, then, Elspat was repelled, rudely when she demanded
anything necessary for her wants, or the accommodation of her
little flock, by a churlish farmer, her threats of vengeance,
obscurely expressed, yet terrible in their tenor, used frequently
to extort, through fear of her maledictions, the relief which was
denied to her necessities; and the trembling goodwife, who gave
meal or money to the widow of MacTavish Mhor, wished in her heart
that the stern old carlin had been burnt on the day her husband
had his due.
Years thus ran on, and Hamish Bean grew up--not, indeed, to be of
his father's size or strength, but to become an active, high-
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: a place memorable in the story of the Camisards. It was here that
the war broke out; here that those southern Covenanters slew their
Archbishop Sharp. The persecution on the one hand, the febrile
enthusiasm on the other, are almost equally difficult to understand
in these quiet modern days, and with our easy modern beliefs and
disbeliefs. The Protestants were one and all beside their right
minds with zeal and sorrow. They were all prophets and
prophetesses. Children at the breast would exhort their parents to
good works. 'A child of fifteen months at Quissac spoke from its
mother's arms, agitated and sobbing, distinctly and with a loud
voice.' Marshal Villars has seen a town where all the women
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