| 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: account. For there we were joined by the Aisne, already a far-
travelled river and fresh out of Champagne. Here ended the
adolescence of the Oise; this was his marriage day; thenceforward
he had a stately, brimming march, conscious of his own dignity and
sundry dams. He became a tranquil feature in the scene. The trees
and towns saw themselves in him, as in a mirror. He carried the
canoes lightly on his broad breast; there was no need to work hard
against an eddy: but idleness became the order of the day, and
mere straightforward dipping of the paddle, now on this side, now
on that, without intelligence or effort. Truly we were coming into
halcyon weather upon all accounts, and were floated towards the sea
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: HERMOGENES: I do.
SOCRATES: Let me ask you, then, which did Homer think the more correct of
the names given to Hector's son--Astyanax or Scamandrius?
HERMOGENES: I do not know.
SOCRATES: How would you answer, if you were asked whether the wise or the
unwise are more likely to give correct names?
HERMOGENES: I should say the wise, of course.
SOCRATES: And are the men or the women of a city, taken as a class, the
wiser?
HERMOGENES: I should say, the men.
SOCRATES: And Homer, as you know, says that the Trojan men called him
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