| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Unconscious Comedians by Honore de Balzac: The toad, of surprising dimensions, was less alarming in himself than
through the effect of two topaz eyes, large as a ten-sous piece, which
cast forth vivid gleams. It was impossible to endure that look. The
toad is a creature as yet unexplained. Perhaps the whole animal
creation, including man, is comprised in it; for, as Lassailly said,
the toad exists indefinitely; and, as we know, it is of all created
animals the one whose marriage lasts the longest.
The black hen had a cage about two feet distant from the table,
covered with a green cloth, to which she came along a plank which
formed a sort of drawbridge between the cage and the table.
When the woman, the least real of the creatures in this Hoffmanesque
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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 Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.: reminding him, by the way, that he had not yet told me the story of
the headless man.
"Your poor gr-ndm-ther was right just now, when she said she was
not my first love. 'Twas one of those banale expressions" (here
Mr. P. blushed once more) "which we use to women. We tell each she
is our first passion. They reply with a similar illusory formula.
No man is any woman's first love; no woman any man's. We are in
love in our nurse's arms, and women coquette with their eyes before
their tongue can form a word. How could your lovely relative love
me? I was far, far too old for her. I am older than I look. I am
so old that you would not believe my age were I to tell you. I
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