| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Start in Life by Honore de Balzac: He cast a glance of examination on Oscar and his mother, but did not
recognize them.
Oscar's skin was now bronzed by the sun of Africa; his moustache was
very thick and his whiskers ample; the hollows in his cheeks and his
strongly marked features were in keeping with his military bearing.
The rosette of an officer of the Legion of honor, his missing arm, the
strict propriety of his dress, would all have diverted Georges
recollections of his former victim if he had had any. As for Madame
Clapart, whom Georges had scarcely seen, ten years devoted to the
exercise of the most severe piety had transformed her. No one would
ever have imagined that that gray sister concealed the Aspasia 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 Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen: steps, into the street, and out of the city gate. She danced, and was forced
to dance straight out into the gloomy wood.
Then it was suddenly light up among the trees, and she fancied it must be the
moon, for there was a face; but it was the old soldier with the red beard; he
sat there, nodded his head, and said, "Look, what beautiful dancing shoes!"
Then she was terrified, and wanted to fling off the red shoes, but they clung
fast; and she pulled down her stockings, but the shoes seemed to have grown to
her feet. And she danced, and must dance, over fields and meadows, in rain and
sunshine, by night and day; but at night it was the most fearful.
She danced over the churchyard, but the dead did not dance--they had
something better to do than to dance. She wished to seat herself on a poor
 Fairy Tales |