The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Start in Life by Honore de Balzac: recognize Madame Clapart?"
It was all the nobler of Oscar to present his mother to Pierrotin,
because, at that moment, Madame Moreau de l'Oise, getting out of the
coupe, overheard the name, and stared disdainfully at Oscar and his
mother.
"My faith! madame," said Pierrotin, "I should never have known you;
nor you, either, monsieur; the sun burns black in Africa, doesn't it?"
The species of pity which Oscar thus felt for Pierrotin was the last
blunder that vanity ever led our hero to commit, and, like his other
faults, it was punished, but very gently, thus:--
Two months after his official installation at Beaumont-sur-Oise, Oscar
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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 Within the Tides by Joseph Conrad: talking together languidly. Unnoticed he looked at that woman so
marvellous that centuries seemed to lie between them. He was
oppressed and overcome at the thought of what she could give to
some man who really would be a force! What a glorious struggle
with this amazon. What noble burden for the victorious strength.
Dear old Mrs. Dunster was dispensing tea, looking from time to time
with interest towards Miss Moorsom. The aged statesman having
eaten a raw tomato and drunk a glass of milk (a habit of his early
farming days, long before politics, when, pioneer of wheat-growing,
he demonstrated the possibility of raising crops on ground looking
barren enough to discourage a magician), smoothed his white beard,
Within the Tides |