| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from St. Ives by Robert Louis Stevenson: presented herself to be our escort, upon which I sprang up with
readiness and offered her my arm. Rowley followed behind. I was
beginning to grow accustomed to the risks of my stay in Edinburgh,
and it even amused me to confront a new churchful. I confess the
amusement did not last until the end; for if Dr. Gray were long,
Mr. McCraw was not only longer, but more incoherent, and the matter
of his sermon (which was a direct attack, apparently, on all the
Churches of the world, my own among the number), where it had not
the tonic quality of personal insult, rather inclined me to
slumber. But I braced myself for my life, kept up Rowley with the
end of a pin, and came through it awake, but no more.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from On Revenues by Xenophon: in active operation; at any rate no one will venture to fix the date
at which they first began to be worked.[2] Now in spite of the fact
that the silver ore has been dug and carried out for so long a time, I
would ask you to note that the mounds of rubbish so shovelled out are
but a fractional portion of the series of hillocks containing veins of
silver, and as yet unquarried. Nor is the silver-bearing region
gradually becoming circumscribed. On the contrary it is evidently
extending in wider area from year to year. That is to say, during the
period in which thousands of workers[3] have been employed within the
mines no hand was ever stopped for want of work to do. Rather, at any
given moment, the work to be done was more than enough for the hands
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