| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift: good. And at last, "God preserve King William from all his open
and secret enemies, Amen." When if the King should happen to have
died, the astrologer plainly foretold it; otherwise it passes but
for the pious ejaculation of a loyal subject: Though it unluckily
happen'd in some of their almanacks, that poor King William was
pray'd for many months after he was dead, because it fell out
that he died about the beginning of the year.
To mention no more of their impertinent predictions: What have we
to do with their advertisements about pills and drink for the
venereal disease? Or their mutual quarrels in verse and prose of
Whig and Tory, wherewith the stars have little to do?
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Start in Life by Honore de Balzac: nobody respects a renegade. Now if they had offered me a hundred
thousand francs a year, perhaps--and yet, no! The pacha did give me a
thousand talari as a present."
"How much is that?" asked Oscar, who was listening to Georges with all
his ears.
"Oh! not much. A talaro is, as you might say, a five-franc piece. But
faith! I got no compensation for the vices I contracted in that God-
forsaken country, if country it is. I can't live now without smoking a
narghile twice a-day, and that's very costly."
"How did you find Egypt?" asked the count.
"Egypt? Oh! Egypt is all sand," replied Georges, by no means taken
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