| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Hated Son by Honore de Balzac: stood forth against the darker green of several alders; here, before a
group of sturdy oaks a slender poplar lifted its palm-like figure,
ever swaying; farther on, the weeping willows drooped their pale
foliage between the stout, round-headed walnuts. This belt of trees
enabled the occupants of the house to go down at all hours to the
river-bank fearless of the rays of the sun.
The facade of the house, before which lay the yellow ribbon of a
gravelled terrace, was shaded by a wooden gallery, around which
climbing plants were twining, and tossing in this month of May their
various blossoms into the very windows of the second floor. Without
being really vast, this garden seemed immense from the manner in which
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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 Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: the cutlasses and bludgeons of the press-gang. But perhaps a
watch on deck in the sharp sea air put a man on his mettle
again; a battle must have been a capital relief; and prize-
money, bloodily earned and grossly squandered, opened the
doors of the prison for a twinkling. Somehow or other, at
least, this worst of possible lives could not overlie the
spirit and gaiety of our sailors; they did their duty as
though they had some interest in the fortune of that country
which so cruelly oppressed them, they served their guns
merrily when it came to fighting, and they had the readiest
ear for a bold, honourable sentiment, of any class of men the
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