| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: oblivion of the dreadful scene, this adoption of ideas against which
he had fought so violently, this confident belief in himself,
petrified me.
When Monsieur de Chessel said to him, "Do you expect to recover your
outlay?"
"More than recover it!" he exclaimed, with a confident gesture.
Such contradictions can be explained only by the word "insanity."
Henriette, celestial creature, was radiant. The count was appearing to
be a man of intelligence, a good administrator, an excellent
agriculturist; she played with her boy's curly head, joyous for him,
happy for herself. What a comedy of pain, what mockery in this drama;
 The Lily of the Valley |
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 Case of the Golden Bullet by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: over, he was about to turn out the gas, when his eye fell on the
blotter on Horn's desk. He looked at it more closely, then burst
into a loud laugh. The same two words were scribbled again and
again over the white surface, but it was not the name of any fair
maiden, or even the title of a love poem; it was only the words,
"That dog - "
Several days had passed since the discovery of the murder. Fellner
had been buried and his possessions taken into custody by the
authorities until his heirs should appear. The dead man's papers
and affairs were in excellent condition and the arranging of the
inheritance had been quickly done. Until the heirs should take
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