| 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: reveal to him without words the tenderness of his mother!
"Brigitte!" said the countess, in a heart-rending tone, placing a
chair before the table, as if to give a semblance of reality to her
hopes, and so increase the strength of her illusions.
"Ah! madame, he will come. He is not far off. I haven't a doubt he is
living, and on his way," replied Brigitte. "I put a key in the Bible,
and I held it on my fingers while Cottin read a chapter in the gospel
of Saint John; and, madame, the key never turned at all!"
"Is that a good sign?" asked the countess.
"Oh! madame, that's a well-known sign. I would wager my salvation, he
still lives. God would not so deceive us."
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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 Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: literature. It used to be a piece of good advice to all
young writers to avoid alliteration; and the advice was
sound, in so far as it prevented daubing. None the less for
that, was it abominable nonsense, and the mere raving of
those blindest of the blind who will not see. The beauty of
the contents of a phrase, or of a sentence, depends
implicitly upon alliteration and upon assonance. The vowel
demands to be repeated; the consonant demands to be repeated;
and both cry aloud to be perpetually varied. You may follow
the adventures of a letter through any passage that has
particularly pleased you; find it, perhaps, denied a while,
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