| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Recruit by Honore de Balzac: She quivered. For the first time in that little town, her soul
sympathized with that of another. The old man now understood both the
hopes and the fears of the poor woman. The letter was from her son. He
had returned to France to share in Granville's expedition, and was
taken prisoner. The letter was written from his cell, but it told her
to hope. He did not doubt his means of escape, and he named to her
three days, on one of which he expected to be with her in disguise.
But in case he did not reach Carentan by the third day, she might know
some fatal difficulty had occurred, and the letter contained his last
wishes and a sad farewell. The paper trembled in the old man's hand.
"This is the third day," cried the countess, rising and walking
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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 Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells: doomed to weep when she talked to her father. But he was always
forcing her to say and do such unexpectedly conclusive things.
She feared he might take her tears as a sign of weakness. So she
said: "I won't come home. I'd rather starve!"
For a moment the conversation hung upon that declaration. Then
Mr. Stanley, putting his hands on the table in the manner rather
of a barrister than a solicitor, and regarding her balefully
through his glasses with quite undisguised animosity, asked, "And
may I presume to inquire, then, what you mean to do?--how do you
propose to live?"
"I shall live," sobbed Ann Veronica. "You needn't be anxious
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