The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson: conduct of an eager boy. And here was the young knight, his
sweetheart, indeed, holding him tightly by the hand, but otherwise
alone, his whole command of men and horses dispersed in the night
and the wide forest, like a paper of pins in a bay barn.
"The saints enlighten me!" he thought. "It is well I was knighted
for this morning's matter; this doth me little honour."
And thereupon, still holding Joanna, he began to run.
The silence of the night was now shattered by the shouts of the men
of Tunstall, as they galloped hither and thither, hunting
fugitives; and Dick broke boldly through the underwood and ran
straight before him like a deer. The silver clearness of the moon
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Exiles by Honore de Balzac: all feudal dues or taxes on the buildings he might erect.
Seven years before the beginning of this narrative, Joseph Tirechair,
one of the sternest of Paris constables, as his name (Tear Flesh)
would indicate, had, thanks to his share of the fines collected by him
for delinquencies committed within the precincts of the Cite, had been
able to build a house on the bank of the Seine just at the end of the
Rue du Port-Saint-Landry. To protect the merchandise landed on the
strand, the municipality had constructed a sort of break-water of
masonry, which may still be seen on some old plans of Paris, and which
preserved the piles of the landing-place by meeting the rush of water
and ice at the upper end of the Island. The constable had taken
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