| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: the brunt uncovered. I began to remember that nature was a woman.
My companion, in a rosier temper, listened with great satisfaction
to my Jeremiads, and ironically concurred. He instanced, as a
cognate matter, the action of the tides, 'which,' said he, 'was
altogether designed for the confusion of canoeists, except in so
far as it was calculated to minister to a barren vanity on the part
of the moon.'
At the last lock, some little way out of Landrecies, I refused to
go any farther; and sat in a drift of rain by the side of the bank,
to have a reviving pipe. A vivacious old man, whom I take to have
been the devil, drew near and questioned me about our journey. In
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin by Robert Louis Stevenson: lazily in the great harbour at Portland, and bye and bye slipped
out past the long pier with so little stir, that I could hardly
believe we were really off. No men drunk, no women crying, no
singing or swearing, no confusion or bustle on deck - nobody
apparently aware that they had anything to do. The look of the
thing was that the ship had been spoken to civilly and had kindly
undertaken to do everything that was necessary without any further
interference. I have a nice cabin with plenty of room for my legs
in my berth and have slept two nights like a top. Then we have the
ladies' cabin set apart as an engineer's office, and I think this
decidedly the nicest place in the ship: 35 ft. x 20 ft. broad -
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