| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson: swayed to and fro in the street without determinate result.
Suddenly Dick was aware of a great trumpeting about the outskirts
of the town. The war-cry of York began to be rolled up to heaven,
as by many and triumphant voices. And at the same time the men in
front of him began to give ground rapidly, streaming out of the
street and back upon the market-place. Some one gave the word to
fly. Trumpets were blown distractedly, some for a rally, some to
charge. It was plain that a great blow had been struck, and the
Lancastrians were thrown, at least for the moment, into full
disorder, and some degree of panic.
And then, like a theatre trick, there followed the last act of
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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 Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: man who understood nothing, and who sought no less to divine something
from the gestures and movements of the lips.
"I am a public scribe and interpreter; I live at the Palais de
Justice, and am named Poincet."
"Good! . . . and this one?" said Henri to Poincet, looking towards the
mulatto.
"I do not know; he only speaks a sort of Spanish /patois/, and he has
brought me here to make himself understood by you."
The mulatto drew from his pocket the letter which Henri had written to
Paquita and handed it to him. Henri threw it in the fire.
"Ah--so--the game is beginning," said Henri to himself. "Paul, leave
 The Girl with the Golden Eyes |