| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: "Pooh!" cried Malaga. "I will wager my cabinet-maker's invoice (the
fellow is dunning me) that the little toad was too many for Maxime."
"I bet on Maxime," said Cardot. "Nobody ever caught him napping."
Desroches drank off a glass that Malaga handed to him.
"Mlle. Chocardelle's reading-room," he continued, after a pause, "was
in the Rue Coquenard, just a step or two from the Rue Pigalle where
Maxime was living. The said Mlle. Chocardelle lived at the back on the
garden side of the house, beyond a big dark place where the books were
kept. Antonia left her aunt to look after the business--"
"Had she an aunt even then?" exclaimed Malaga. "Hang it all, Maxime
did things handsomely."
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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 An Episode Under the Terror by Honore de Balzac: one moment she reeled beneath an overpowering weight of dread, for she
could not doubt any longer that the man had followed her the whole way
from her own door; then the desire to escape from the spy gave her
strength. Unable to think clearly, she walked twice as fast as before,
as if it were possible to escape from a man who of course could move
much faster; and for some minutes she fled on, till, reaching a
pastry-cook's shop, she entered and sank rather than sat down upon a
chair by the counter.
A young woman busy with embroidery looked up from her work at the
rattling of the door-latch, and looked out through the square window-
panes. She seemed to recognize the old-fashioned violet silk mantle,
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