| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: failing rapidly, old Mother Simon, who had lost her money in the
grocery business, came very morning to chop the wood and pump the
water.
Her eyesight grew dim. She did not open the shutters after that. Many
years passed. But the house did not sell or rent. Fearing that she
would be put out, Felicite did not ask for repairs. The laths of the
roof were rotting away, and during one whole winter her bolster was
wet. After Easter she spit blood.
Then Mother Simon went for a doctor. Felicite wished to know what her
complaint was. But, being too deaf to hear, she caught only one word:
"Pneumonia." She was familiar with it and gently answered:--"Ah! like
A Simple Soul |
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 Juana by Honore de Balzac: comprised all earthly sentiments. Each, from differing causes, had no
other comfort in their misery. Juana's maternal love may have been the
strongest because, deprived of all other affections, she put the joys
she lacked into the one joy of her children; and there are noble
passions that resemble vice; the more they are satisfied the more they
increase. Mothers and gamblers are alike insatiable.
When Juana saw the generous pardon laid silently on the head of Juan
by Diard's fatherly affection, she was much moved, and from the day
when the husband and wife changed parts she felt for him the true and
deep interest she had hitherto shown to him as a matter of duty only.
If that man had been more consistent in his life; if he had not
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