| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: brought the body, pierced with two-and-fifty wounds, to be
interred. Clad in his priestly robes, he was laid out in state in
the church. The CURE, taking his text from Second Samuel,
twentieth chapter and twelfth verse, 'And Amasa wallowed in his
blood in the highway,' preached a rousing sermon, and exhorted his
brethren to die each at his post, like their unhappy and
illustrious superior. In the midst of this eloquence there came a
breeze that Spirit Seguier was near at hand; and behold! all the
assembly took to their horses' heels, some east, some west, and the
CURE himself as far as Alais.
Strange was the position of this little Catholic metropolis, a
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: one's utmost to keep it from their knowledge, as a red flag of
adventure and disintegrating influence in life. The time
would fail me if I were to recite all the big names in history
whose exploits are perfectly irrational and even shocking to
the business mind. The incongruity is speaking; and I imagine
it must engender among the mediocrities a very peculiar
attitude, towards the nobler and showier sides of national
life. They will read of the Charge of Balaclava in much the
same spirit as they assist at a performance of the LYONS MAIL.
Persons of substance take in the TIMES and sit composedly in
pit or boxes according to the degree of their prosperity in
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