| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: of Charles V. had studied medicine? History is silent on that point.
We shall see presently what clouds hang round that fact. The obscurity
is so great that, quite recently, grave and conscientious historians
have admitted Montecuculi's innocence.
Catherine then heard officially from the Pope's own lips of the
alliance reserved for her. The Duke of Albany had been able to do no
more than hold the king of France, and that with difficulty, to his
promise of giving Catherine the hand of his second son, the Duc
d'Orleans. The Pope's impatience was so great, and he was so afraid
that his plans would be thwarted either by some intrigue of the
emperor, or by the refusal of France, or by the grandees of 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 The Sportsman by Xenophon: [4] Reading {makra}, or if {mikra}, "small."
[5] Al. "well rounded."
[6] "Shoulder blades standing out a little from the shoulders"; i.e.
"free."
[7] i.e. "not wholly given up to depth, but well curved"; depth is not
everything unless the ribs be also curved. Schneid. cf. Ov. "Met."
iii. 216, "et substricta gerens Sicyonius ilia Ladon," where the
poet is perhaps describing a greyhound, "chyned like a bream." See
Stonehenge, pp. 21, 22. Xenophon's "Castorians" were more like the
Welsh harrier in build, I presume.
[8] Or, "neither soft and spongy nor unyielding." See Stoneh., p. 23.
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