| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: of tea, and said loud enough for Madame de Vandenesse to hear:--
"You are certainly very amusing; come and see me sometimes at four
o'clock."
The word "amusing" offended Raoul, though it was used as the ground of
an invitation. Blondet took pity on him.
"My dear fellow," he said, taking him aside into a corner, "you are
behaving in society as if you were at Florine's. Here no one shows
annoyance, or spouts long articles; they say a few words now and then,
they look their calmest when most desirous of flinging others out of
the window; they sneer softly, they pretend not to think of the woman
they adore, and they are careful not to roll like a donkey on the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Edingburgh Picturesque Notes by Robert Louis Stevenson: waters. In Scotland, all our singers have a stave or two
for blazing fires and stout potations:- to get indoors
out of the wind and to swallow something hot to the
stomach, are benefits so easily appreciated where they
dwelt!
And this is not only so in country districts where
the shepherd must wade in the snow all day after his
flock, but in Edinburgh itself, and nowhere more
apparently stated than in the works of our Edinburgh
poet, Fergusson. He was a delicate youth, I take it, and
willingly slunk from the robustious winter to an inn
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