| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: "Well, barely."
These last remarks were made in my neighborhood by persons whom I did
not know, and who passed out of hearing just as I was summarizing in
one last thought my reflections, in which black and white, life and
death, were inextricably mingled. My wandering imagination, like my
eyes, contemplated alternately the festivities, which had now reached
the climax of their splendor, and the gloomy picture presented by the
gardens. I have no idea how long I meditated upon those two faces of
the human medal; but I was suddenly aroused by the stifled laughter of
a young woman. I was stupefied at the picture presented to my eyes. By
virtue of one of the strangest of nature's freaks, the thought half
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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 Commission in Lunacy by Honore de Balzac: Such was the man who had been instructed by the President of the
Second Chamber of the Court--to which Popinot had belonged since his
reinstatement among the judges in civil law--to examine the Marquis
d'Espard at the request of his wife, who sued for a Commission in
Lunacy.
The Rue du Fouarre, where so many unhappy wretches swarmed in the
early morning, would be deserted by nine o'clock, and as gloomy and
squalid as ever. Bianchon put his horse to a trot in order to find his
uncle in the midst of his business. It was not without a smile that he
thought of the curious contrast the judge's appearance would make in
Madame d'Espard's room; but he promised himself that he would persuade
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