| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Pupil by Henry James: their cold tough slices of American. They lived on macaroni and
coffee - they had these articles prepared in perfection - but they
knew recipes for a hundred other dishes. They overflowed with
music and song, were always humming and catching each other up, and
had a sort of professional acquaintance with Continental cities.
They talked of "good places" as if they had been pickpockets or
strolling players. They had at Nice a villa, a carriage, a piano
and a banjo, and they went to official parties. They were a
perfect calendar of the "days" of their friends, which Pemberton
knew them, when they were indisposed, to get out of bed to go to,
and which made the week larger than life when Mrs. Moreen talked 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 La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: quick to discover this, and he would call to his brother:
"Come, Marie! let us run in to breakfast, I am hungry!"
But when they reached the door, he would look back to catch the
expression on his mother's face. She still could find a smile for him,
nay, often there were tears in her eyes when some little thing
revealed her child's exquisite feeling, a too early comprehension of
sorrow.
Mme. Willemsens dressed during the children's early breakfast and game
of play; she was coquettish for her darlings; she wished to be
pleasing in their eyes; for them she would fain be in all things
lovely, a gracious vision, with the charm of some sweet perfume of
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