| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Hated Son by Honore de Balzac: those days fled by, laden with her secret content.
The counsel of the bonesetter still continued in the countess's mind.
She feared for her child, and would gladly not have slept in order to
be sure that no one approached him during her sleep; and she kept his
cradle beside her bed. In the absence of the count she ventured to
send for the bonesetter, whose name she had caught and remembered. To
her, Beauvouloir was a being to whom she owed an untold debt of
gratitude; and she desired of all things to question him on certain
points relating to her son. If an attempt were made to poison him, how
should she foil it? In what way ought she to manage his frail
constitution? Was it well to nurse him long? If she died, would
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: but two of a trade cannot agree: therefore your hero makes laws to get
rid of your thief, and gives him an ill name that he may hang him:
for might is right, and the strong make laws for the weak, and they
that make laws to serve their own turn do also make morals to give
colour to their laws."
"Your comparison, friar," said the stranger, "fails in this:
that your thief fights for profit, and your hero for honour.
I have fought under the banners of Richard, and if, as you phrase it,
he guts exchequers, and sacks cities, it is not to win treasure
for himself, but to furnish forth the means of his greater
and more glorious aim."
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