| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: diamonds.--Ah! wait.
"One night my blunted steel struck on wood. I whetted the fragment of
my blade and cut a hole; I crept on my belly like a serpent; I worked
naked and mole-fashion, my hands in front of me, using the stone
itself to gain a purchase. I was to appear before my judges in two
days' time, I made a final effort, and that night I bored through the
wood and felt that there was space beyond.
"Judge of my surprise when I applied my eye to the hole. I was in the
ceiling of a vault, heaps of gold were dimly visible in the faint
light. The Doge himself and one of the Ten stood below; I could hear
their voices and sufficient of their talk to know that this was the
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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 Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson: closed upon the sea front of the garden wall, and took a part of
the strangers, as it were, between two fires; while the whole of
the remainder ran for their lives in different directions, and were
soon scattered in the darkness.
For all that, the fight was but beginning. Dick's outlaws,
although they had the advantage of the surprise, were still
considerably outnumbered by the men they had surrounded. The tide
had flowed, in the meanwhile; the beach was narrowed to a strip;
and on this wet field, between the surf and the garden wall, there
began, in the darkness, a doubtful, furious, and deadly contest.
The strangers were well armed; they fell in silence upon their
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