| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from My Aunt Margaret's Mirror by Walter Scott: The representation of Sir Philip Forester, now distinctly visible
in form and feature, was seen to lead on towards the clergyman
that beautiful girl, who advanced at once with diffidence and
with a species of affectionate pride. In the meantime, and just
as the clergyman had arranged the bridal company before him, and
seemed about to commence the service, another group of persons,
of whom two or three were officers, entered the church. They
moved, at first, forward, as though they came to witness the
bridal ceremony; but suddenly one of the officers, whose back was
towards the spectators, detached himself from his companions, and
rushed hastily towards the marriage party, when the whole of them
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: be about the sea. The lion is nothing to us; he has not been
taken to the hearts of the people, and naturalised as an
English emblem. We know right well that a lion would fall
foul of us as grimly as he would of a Frenchman or a Moldavian
Jew, and we do not carry him before us in the smoke of battle.
But the sea is our approach and bulwark; it has been the scene
of our greatest triumphs and dangers; and we are accustomed in
lyrical strains to claim it as our own. The prostrating
experiences of foreigners between Calais and Dover have always
an agreeable side to English prepossessions. A man from
Bedfordshire, who does not know one end of the ship from the
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