| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy: "So I have heard."
"Well, it was no that I wanted it so very much for myself;
but I wish ye to pick out all that you care to have--such
things as may be endeared to ye by associations, or
particularly suited to your use. And take them to your own
house--it will not be depriving me, we can do with less very
well, and I will have plenty of opportunities of getting
more."
"What--give it to me for nothing?" said Henchard. "But you
paid the creditors for it!"
"Ah, yes; but maybe it's worth more to you than it is to
 The Mayor of Casterbridge |
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 La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: and French equally well (they had had an English nurse since their
babyhood), so their mother talked to them in both languages; directing
the bent of their childish minds with admirable skill, admitting no
fallacious reasoning, no bad principle. She ruled by kindness,
concealing nothing, explaining everything. If Louis wished for books,
she was careful to give him interesting yet accurate books--books of
biography, the lives of great seamen, great captains, and famous men,
for little incidents in their history gave her numberless
opportunities of explaining the world and life to her children. She
would point out the ways in which men, really great in themselves, had
risen from obscurity; how they had started from the lowest ranks of
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