| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy: not to walk near the centre of the road, and she found it difficult to
keep up a sharp pace along the muddy incline. She even thought it
best not to keep too near to the cart; everything was so still, that
the rumble of the wheels could not fail to be a safe guide.
The loneliness was absolute. Already the few dim lights of
Calais lay far behind, and on this road there was not a sign of human
habitation, not even the hut of a fisherman or of a woodcutter
anywhere near; far away on her right was the edge of the cliff, below
it the rough beach, against which the incoming tide was dashing itself
with its constant, distant murmur. And ahead the rumble of the
wheels, bearing an implacable enemy to his triumph.
 The Scarlet Pimpernel |
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 Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: she had added that we should not be disturbed, that the occupant was
exceedingly quiet. In fact, for those six months, we never met our
fellow-lodger, and we never heard a sound in his room, in spite of the
thinness of the partition that divided us--one of those walls of lath
and plaster which are common in Paris houses.
Our room, a little over seven feet high, was hung with a vile cheap
paper sprigged with blue. The floor was painted, and knew nothing of
the polish given by the /frotteur's/ brush. By our beds there was only
a scrap of thin carpet. The chimney opened immediately to the roof,
and smoked so abominably that we were obliged to provide a stove at
our own expense. Our beds were mere painted wooden cribs like those in
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