| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: represented at Douai in the person of Monsieur Balthazar Claes-Molina,
Comte de Nourho, who preferred to be called simply Balthazar Claes. Of
the immense fortune amassed by his ancestors, who had kept in motion
over a thousand looms, there remained to him some fifteen thousand
francs a year from landed property in the arrondissement of Douai, and
the house in the rue de Paris, whose furniture in itself was a
fortune. As to the family possessions in Leon, they had been in
litigation between the Molinas of Douai and the branch of the family
which remained in Spain. The Molinas of Leon won the domain and
assumed the title of Comtes de Nourho, though the Claes alone had a
legal right to it. But the pride of a Belgian burgher was superior to
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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 Dreams by Olive Schreiner: looked out across the water. She was waiting--she was waiting; but she
could not tell for what.
All day the waves ran up and up on the sand, and ran back again, and the
pink shells rolled. Life sat waiting; all day, with the sunlight in her
eyes, she sat there, till, grown weary, she laid her head upon her knee and
fell asleep, waiting still.
Then a keel grated on the sand, and then a step was on the shore--Life
awoke and heard it. A hand was laid upon her, and a great shudder passed
through her. She looked up, and saw over her the strange, wide eyes of
Love--and Life now knew for whom she had sat there waiting.
And Love drew Life up to him.
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