| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Paz by Honore de Balzac: angelic gratitude of the man whose life was based upon that virtue.
The countess folded her arms in her shawl, lay back pensively on her
cushions, ruffling the feathers of her pretty bonnet, and looked at
the people who passed her. That flash of a great and hitherto resigned
soul reached her sensibilities. What was Adam's merit in her eyes? It
was natural enough to have courage and generosity. But Thaddeus--
surely Thaddeus possessed, or seemed to possess, some great
superiority over Adam. They were dangerous thoughts which took
possession of the countess's mind as she again noticed the contrast of
the fine presence that distinguished Thaddeus, and the puny frame in
which Adam showed the degenerating effects of intermarriage among the
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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 Mistress Wilding by Rafael Sabatini: In a lofty, spacious room of the town hall at Taunton sat Sir Edward
Phelips and Colonel Luttrell to dispense justice, and with them,
flanked by one of them on either side of him, sat Christopher Monk,
Duke of Albemarle, Lord-Lieutenant of Devonshire, who had been summoned
in all haste from Exeter that he might be present at an examination
which promised to be of so vast importance. The three sat at a long
table at the room's end, attended by two secretaries.
Before them, guarded by constable and tything-men, weaponless, their
hands pinioned behind them - Blake's arm was healed by now - stood Mr.
Westmacott and his friend Sir Rowland to answer this grave charge.
Richard, not knowing who might have betrayed him and to what extent,
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