| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Montezuma's Daughter by H. Rider Haggard: Indian warrior with Guatemoc and the other generals, to a parley
which was held with Cortes, who took his stand on the same tower of
the palace that Montezuma had stood on when the arrow of Guatemoc
struck him down. There is little to be said of this parley, and I
remember it chiefly because it was then for the first time since I
had left the Tobascans that I saw Marina close, and heard her sweet
and gentle voice. For now as ever she was by the side of Cortes,
translating his proposals of peace to the Aztecs. Among those
proposals was one which showed me that de Garcia had not been idle.
It asked that the false white man who had been rescued from the
altars of the gods upon the teocalli should be given in exchange
 Montezuma's Daughter |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson: `are subject to no calculation'; and still he must predict,
still calculate them, at his peril. His work is not yet in
being, and he must foresee its influence: how it shall deflect
the tide, exaggerate the waves, dam back the rain-water, or
attract the thunderbolt. He visits a piece of sea-board; and
from the inclination and soil of the beach, from the weeds and
shell-fish, from the configuration of the coast and the depth
of soundings outside, he must deduce what magnitude of waves
is to be looked for. He visits a river, its summer water
babbling on shallows; and he must not only read, in a thousand
indications, the measure of winter freshets, but be able to
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