| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: aristocracies, have shown how easily men accustomed to
superfluous luxuries can do without the necessaries of life;
whereas men who have toiled to acquire a competency can hardly
live after they have lost it.
If I turn my observation from the upper to the lower
classes, I find analogous effects produced by opposite causes.
Amongst a nation where aristocracy predominates in society, and
keeps it stationary, the people in the end get as much accustomed
to poverty as the rich to their opulence. The latter bestow no
anxiety on their physical comforts, because they enjoy them
without an effort; the former do not think of things which they
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The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: people. At that moment her frightened eyes fell on the impassioned
face of the young painter. She at once recalled the figure of a
loiterer whom, being curious, she had frequently observed, believing
him to be a new neighbor.
"You see how love has inspired me," said the artist in the timid
creature's ear, and she stood in dismay at the words.
She found supernatural courage to enable her to push through the crowd
and join her cousin, who was still struggling with the mass of people
that hindered her from getting to the picture.
"You will be stifled!" cried Augustine. "Let us go."
But there are moments, at the Salon, when two women are not always
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