| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from From London to Land's End by Daniel Defoe: gentleman might find very agreeable company in Plymouth.
From Plymouth we pass the Tamar over a ferry to Saltash--a little,
poor, shattered town, the first we set foot on in the county of
Cornwall. The Tamar here is very wide, and the ferry-boats bad; so
that I thought myself well escaped when I got safe on shore in
Cornwall.
Saltash seems to be the ruins of a larger place; and we saw many
houses, as it were, falling down, and I doubt not but the mice and
rats have abandoned many more, as they say they will when they are
likely to fall. Yet this town is governed by a mayor and aldermen,
has many privileges, sends members to Parliament, takes toll of all
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tom Grogan by F. Hopkinson Smith: glass pin. His face was spattered with blue powder-marks, as if
from some quarry explosion. A lump of a mustache dyed dark brown
concealed his upper lip, making all the more conspicuous the
bushy, sandy-colored eyebrows that shaded a pair of treacherous
eyes. His mouth was coarse and filled with teeth half worn off,
like those of an old horse. When he smiled these opened slowly
like a vise. Whatever of humor played about this opening lost its
life instantly when these jaws clicked together again.
The hands were big and strong, wrinkled and seamed, their rough
backs spotted like a toad's, the wrists covered with long spidery
hairs.
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