| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Collection of Beatrix Potter by Beatrix Potter: in no time; he had already eaten
all his own peppermints. "Give
me one of yours, please, Pigling."
"But I wish to preserve them for
emergencies," said Pigling Bland
doubtfully. Alexander went into
squeals of laughter. Then he
pricked Pigling with the pin that
had fastened his pig paper; and
when Pigling slapped him he
dropped the pin, and tried to take
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: go all over the States, and - setting aside the actual intrusion
and influence of foreigners, negro, French, or Chinese - you shall
scarce meet with so marked a difference of accent as in the forty
miles between Edinburgh and Glasgow, or of dialect as in the
hundred miles between Edinburgh and Aberdeen. Book English has
gone round the world, but at home we still preserve the racy idioms
of our fathers, and every county, in some parts every dale, has its
own quality of speech, vocal or verbal. In like manner, local
custom and prejudice, even local religion and local law, linger on
into the latter end of the nineteenth century - IMPERIA IN IMPERIO,
foreign things at home.
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