| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Phoenix and the Turtle by William Shakespeare: Reason, in itself confounded,
Saw division grow together;
To themselves yet either-neither,
Simple were so well compounded.
That it cried how true a twain
Seemeth this concordant one!
Love hath reason, reason none
If what parts can so remain.
Whereupon it made this threne
To the phoenix and the dove,
Co-supreme and stars of love;
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Legend of Montrose by Walter Scott: than peace.
Great commotions were generally expected to arise from these
concurrent causes; and the trade of incursion and depredation,
which the Scotch Highlanders at all times exercised upon the
Lowlands, began to assume a more steady, avowed, and systematic
form, as part of a general military system.
Those at the head of affairs were not insensible to the peril of
the moment, and anxiously made preparations to meet and to repel
it. They considered, however, with satisfaction, that no leader
or name of consequence had as yet appeared to assemble an army of
royalists, or even to direct the efforts of those desultory
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