| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Europeans by Henry James: So you recommend him to be nice with her, you know.
The suggestion will come best from you."
"Do I understand," asked the old man, "that I am to suggest to my son
to make a--a profession of--of affection to Madame Munster?"
"Yes, yes--a profession!" cried Felix sympathetically.
"But, as I understand it, Madame Munster is a married woman."
"Ah," said Felix, smiling, "of course she can't marry him.
But she will do what she can."
Mr. Wentworth sat for some time with his eyes on the floor;
at last he got up. "I don't think," he said, "that I can
undertake to recommend my son any such course." And without
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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 Gambara by Honore de Balzac: good and evil. This antagonism offered a splendid opportunity to the
composer. The sweetest melodies, in juxtaposition with harsh and crude
strains, was the natural outcome of the form of the story; but in the
German composer's score the demons sing better than the saints. The
heavenly airs belie their origin, and when the composer abandons the
infernal motives he returns to them as soon as possible, fatigued with
the effort of keeping aloof from them. Melody, the golden thread that
ought never to be lost throughout so vast a plan, often vanishes from
Meyerbeer's work. Feeling counts for nothing, the heart has no part in
it. Hence we never come upon those happy inventions, those artless
scenes, which captivate all our sympathies and leave a blissful
 Gambara |