| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Eve and David by Honore de Balzac: took his son's silence as an insult, and Petit-Claud, taking advantage
of his client's bewilderment, beat a retreat.
"Good-bye, my dear David; you have had warning, notice of appeal
doesn't invalidate the warrant for arrest. It is the only course left
open to your creditors, and it will not be long before they take it.
So, go away at once----Or, rather, if you will take my advice, go to
the Cointets and see them about it. They have capital. If your
invention is perfected and answers the purpose, go into partnership
with them. After all, they are very good fellows----"
"Your invention?" broke in old Sechard.
"Why, do you suppose that your son is fool enough to let his business
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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 Profits of Religion by Upton Sinclair: this book, that the "infinite powers" in America are the powers
that prey!
The Great American Fraud
Among the most loathesome products of our native commercial greed
is the patent medicine industry, "The Great American Fraud," as
its historian has called it. In 1907 this historian wrote:
Gullible America will spend this year some seventy-five millions
of dollars in the purchase of patent medicines. In consideration
of this sum it will swallow huge quantities of alcohol, an
appalling amount of opiates and narcotics, a wide assortment of
varied drugs ranging from powerful and dangerous heart
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