| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Selected Writings of Guy De Maupassant by Guy De Maupassant: keys, which included also that to the kitchen garden, where my
servants slept in a house standing by itself, on the other side
of the wall of the inclosure which protected my fruits and
vegetables from the raids of marauders.
I covered myself up to the eyes in the bed which was assigned to
me, but could not sleep; and I waited for the dawn listening to
the throbbing of my heart. I had given orders that my servants
were to be summoned to the hotel at daybreak, and my valet de
chambre knocked at my door at seven o'clock in the morning.
His countenance bore a woeful look.
"A great misfortune has happened during the night, Monsieur,"
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: To write with authority about another man, we must have
fellow-feeling and some common ground of experience with our
subject. We may praise or blame according as we find him
related to us by the best or worst in ourselves; but it is
only in virtue of some relationship that we can be his
judges, even to condemn. Feelings which we share and
understand enter for us into the tissue of the man's
character; those to which we are strangers in our own
experience we are inclined to regard as blots, exceptions,
inconsistencies, and excursions of the diabolic; we conceive
them with repugnance, explain them with difficulty, and raise
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