| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Essays of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: French coffee to conclude the whole. I never entered into the
feelings of Jack on land so completely as when I tasted that coffee.
I suppose we had one of the 'private rooms for families' at Reunion
House. It was very small, furnished with a bed, a chair, and some
clothes-pegs; and it derived all that was necessary for the life of
the human animal through two borrowed lights; one looking into the
passage, and the second opening, without sash, into another
apartment, where three men fitfully snored, or in intervals of
wakefulness, drearily mumbled to each other all night long. It will
be observed that this was almost exactly the disposition of the room
in M'Naughten's story. Jones had the bed; I pitched my camp upon 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 Ursula by Honore de Balzac: three hundred and fifty francs a year in dividends. These judicious
transactions, agreed on between the doctor and Monsieur Bongrand, were
carried out in perfect secrecy, thanks to the political troubles of
the time.
When quiet was again restored the doctor bought the little house which
adjoined his own and pulled it down so as to build a coach-house and
stables on its side. To employ a capital which would have given him a
thousand francs a year on outbuildings seemed actual folly to the
Minoret heirs. This folly, if it were one, was the beginning of a new
era in the doctor's existence, for he now (at a period when horses and
carriages were almost given away) brought back from Paris three fine
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