| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac: "My girl owed God and the devil----"
"Vat, you haf a girl, a mistress!" cried Nucingen, looking at
Contenson with admiration not unmixed with envy.
"I am but sixty-six," replied Contenson, as a man whom vice has kept
young as a bad example.
"And vat do she do?"
"She helps me," said Contenson. "When a man is a thief, and an honest
woman loves him, either she becomes a thief or he becomes an honest
man. I have always been a spy."
"And you vant money--alvays?" asked Nucingen.
"Always," said Contenson, with a smile. "It is part of my business to
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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 Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell: When she had shoved and pushed her way through the mob for a block
beyond Five Points the crowd thinned a little and, gathering up her
skirts, she began to run again. When she reached Wesley Chapel,
she was breathless and dizzy and sick at her stomach. Her stays
were cutting her ribs in two. She sank down on the steps of the
church and buried her head in her hands until she could breathe
more easily. If she could only get one deep breath, way down in
her abdomen. If her heart would only stop bumping and drumming and
cavorting. If there were only someone in this mad place to whom
she could turn.
Why, she had never had to do a thing for herself in all her life.
 Gone With the Wind |