| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lesser Bourgeoisie by Honore de Balzac: revolutionary glance which twice in this century sovereigns have had
to meet:--
"I have made you king, and here am I still nothing! for it is nothing
not to be all."
A reaction of envy was rushing its avalanche through Cerizet. Dutocq
was at the mercy of his copying clerk. Theodose would gladly have
burned his copartners could he have burned their papers in the same
conflagration. All three studied each other too carefully, in order to
conceal their own thoughts, not to be in turn divined. Theodose lived
a life of three hells as he thought of what lay below the cards, then
of his own game, and then of his future. His speech to Thuillier was 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 Edingburgh Picturesque Notes by Robert Louis Stevenson: mind under a very strong illumination of remembered
pleasure. But the effect of not one of them all will
compare with the discoverer's joy, and the sense of old
Time and his slow changes on the face of this earth, with
which I explored such corners as Cannonmills or Water
Lane, or the nugget of cottages at Broughton Market.
They were more rural than the open country, and gave a
greater impression of antiquity than the oldest LAND upon
the High Street. They too, like Fergusson's butterfly,
had a quaint air of having wandered far from their own
place; they looked abashed and homely, with their gables
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