| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Melmoth Reconciled by Honore de Balzac: of buildings which looked out upon some gardens lived the unconscious
cause of Castanier's crime--a young woman known in the quarter as Mme.
de la Garde. A concise history of certain events in the cashier's past
life must be given in order to explain these facts, and to give a
complete presentment of the crisis when he yielded to temptation.
Mme. de la Garde said that she was a Piedmontese. No one, not even
Castanier, knew her real name. She was one of those young girls, who
are driven by dire misery, by inability to earn a living, or by fear
of starvation, to have recourse to a trade which most of them loathe,
many regard with indifference, and some few follow in obedience to the
laws of their constitution. But on the brink of the gulf of
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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 Chance by Joseph Conrad: the scraped jaws who sits over her and stares down at her dead-white
face with his yellow eyes--confound them! Perhaps you will tell us
that his eyes are not yellow?"
Powell, not interested in the colour of Mr. Smith's eyes, made a
vague gesture. Yellow or not yellow, it was all one to him.
The mate murmured to himself. "No. He can't know. No! No more
than a baby. It would take an older head."
"I don't even understand what you mean," observed Mr. Powell coldly.
"And even the best head would be puzzled by such devil-work," the
mate continued, muttering. "Well, I have heard tell of women doing
for a man in one way or another when they got him fairly ashore.
 Chance |