| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Merry Men by Robert Louis Stevenson: Beginning life with mountebanks and thieves, passing onward to the
society and friendship of philosophers, he may be said to have
skimmed the volume of human life.'
'Thieves?' repeated the brother-in-law, with a meditative air.
The Doctor could have bitten his tongue out. He foresaw what was
coming, and prepared his mind for a vigorous defence.
'Did you ever steal yourself?' asked Casimir, turning suddenly on
Jean-Marie, and for the first time employing a single eyeglass
which hung round his neck.
'Yes, sir,' replied the boy, with a deep blush.
Casimir turned to the others with pursed lips, and nodded to them
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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 Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: Montcornet might have dismissed his steward under pretext of paying
off a military obligation by putting some old soldier in his place;
Gaubertin and the general would have understood the matter, and the
latter, by sparing the steward's self-love would have given him a
chance to withdraw quietly. Gaubertin, in that case, would have left
his late employer in peace, and possibly he might have taken himself
and his savings to Paris for investment. But being, as he was,
ignominiously dismissed, the man conceived against his late master one
of those bitter hatreds which are literally a part of existence in
provincial life, the persistency, duration, and plots of which would
astonish diplomatists who are trained to let nothing astonish them. A
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