| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Stories From the Old Attic by Robert Harris: glimmer of understanding, which neither found.
* * *
One spring a richly dressed young man came to The Wise One and spoke
these words:
"I have come from a far kingdom where I have just ascended the
throne. My father ruled long and was old when he died, and now I am
remodeling his castle. The many books of his great library are in
the way of my new banquet hall, and I desire to rid myself of so
much old paper. But I do not wish to throw out every book. I want
to keep some for the sake of his precious memory. Thus, I have come
to you for a principle of selection. Which books should I keep and
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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 A Start in Life by Honore de Balzac: Item: a compote of pigeons with caused us to think the angels had
had a finger in it.
Item: a timbale of macaroni surrounded by chocolate custards.
Item: a dessert composed of eleven delicate dishes, among which we
remarked (in spite of the tipsiness caused by sixteen bottles of
the choicest wines) a compote of peaches of august and mirobolant
delicacy.
The wines of Roussillon and those of the banks of the Rhone
completely effaced those of Champagne and Burgundy. A bottle of
maraschino and another of kirsch did, in spite of the exquisite
coffee, plunge us into so marked an oenological ecstasy that we
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