| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: over again. Perhaps a doctor would have observed with interest the
connection that evidently existed between the recurring and spasmodic
demands for the newspaper and the atmospheric variations of the
weather.
Usually when his wife had company, which happened nearly every
evening, for the neighbors, pitying her situation, would frequently
come to play at boston in her salon, Margaritis remained silent in a
corner and never stirred. But the moment ten o'clock began to strike
on a clock which he kept shut up in a large oblong closet, he rose at
the stroke with the mechanical precision of the figures which are made
to move by springs in the German toys. He would then advance slowly
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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 Lesser Hippias by Plato: voluntarily, and the bad involuntarily?
HIPPIAS: That is to be inferred.
SOCRATES: Then he who involuntarily does evil actions, is worse in a race
than he who does them voluntarily?
HIPPIAS: Yes, in a race.
SOCRATES: Well, but at a wrestling match--which is the better wrestler, he
who falls voluntarily or involuntarily?
HIPPIAS: He who falls voluntarily, doubtless.
SOCRATES: And is it worse or more dishonourable at a wrestling match, to
fall, or to throw another?
HIPPIAS: To fall.
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