| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: You will mar all with these cosmetics. God made you one face; and you
make yourself another. Think of your grave, woman, not ever of being
beautified. All the perfumes of Arabia will not whiten this Tudor
hand.
THE MAN. "All the perfumes of Arabia"! "Beautified"! "Beautified"!
a poem in a single word. Can this be my Mary? _[To the Lady]_ Why
do you speak in a strange voice, and utter poetry for the first time?
Are you ailing? You walk like the dead. Mary! Mary!
THE LADY. _[echoing him]_ Mary! Mary! Who would have thought that
woman to have had so much blood in her! Is it my fault that my
counsellors put deeds of blood on me? Fie! If you were women you
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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 Chronicles of the Canongate by Walter Scott: cupboard, and fifty guineas to buy a ring. And thus I separated,
with all the kindness which we had maintained for many years,
from a friend, who, though old enough to have been the companion
of my mother, was yet, in gaiety of spirits and admirable
sweetness of temper, capable of being agreeable, and even
animating society, for those who write themselves in the vaward
of youth, an advantage which I have lost for these five-and-
thirty years. The contents of the packet I had no difficulty in
guessing, and have partly hinted at them in the last chapter.
But to instruct the reader in the particulars, and at the same
time to indulge myself with recalling the virtues and agreeable
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