| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart: When he awakened they were still higher. The snow-peak towered
above and the valleys were dizzying! Semmering was getting near.
They were frequently in darkness; and between the tunnels were
long lines of granite avalanche sheds. The little passage of the
car was full of tourists looking down.
"We are very close, I am sure," an American girl was saying just
outside the doorway. "See, isn't that the Kurhaus? There, it is
lost again."
The tourists in the passage were Americans and the girl who had
spoken was young and attractive. Stewart noticed them for the
first time and moved to a more decorous distance from Marie.
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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 The Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: stone, as some lithographers would have us believe.
When Don Juan Belvidero reached the age of sixty he settled in
Spain, and there in his old age he married a young and charming
Andalusian wife. But of set purpose he was neither a good husband
nor a good father. He had observed that we are never so tenderly
loved as by women to whom we scarcely give a thought. Dona Elvira
had been devoutly brought up by an old aunt in a castle a few
leagues from San-Lucar in a remote part of Andalusia. She was a
model of devotion and grace. Don Juan foresaw that this would be
a woman who would struggle long against a passion before
yielding, and therefore hoped to keep her virtuous until his
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