| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: spoke of their past patients -familiarly but not without respect,
like old family servants. Here is indeed a servant, whom we forget
that we possess; who does not wait at the bright table, or run at
the bell's summons, but patiently smokes his pipe beside the
mortuary fire, and in his faithful memory notches the burials of
our race. To suspect Shakespeare in his maturity of a superficial
touch savours of paradox; yet he was surely in error when he
attributed insensibility to the digger of the grave. But perhaps
it is on Hamlet that the charge should lie; or perhaps the English
sexton differs from the Scotch. The "goodman delver," reckoning up
his years of office, might have at least suggested other thoughts.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Commission in Lunacy by Honore de Balzac: Coeur enriched twenty noble families; the confiscations pronounced by
the English to the advantage of their adherents at the time when they
held a part of France made the fortune of several princely houses.
"Our law allows M. d'Espard to dispose of his income without
accounting for it, or suffering him to be accused of its
misapplication. A Commission in Lunacy can only be granted when a
man's actions are devoid of reason; but in this case, the remittances
made to you have a reason based on the most sacred and most honorable
motives. Hence you may keep it all without remorse, and leave the
world to misinterpret a noble action. In Paris, the highest virtue is
the object of the foulest calumny. It is, unfortunately, the present
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