| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: her obligations as she was of her picture-gallery; she was in
fact fond of implying that the one possession implied the other,
and that only a woman of her wealth could afford to live up to a
standard as high as that which she had set herself. An all-round
sense of duty, roughly adaptable to various ends, was, in her
opinion, all that Providence exacted of the more humbly
stationed; but the power which had predestined Mrs. Plinth to
keep footmen clearly intended her to maintain an equally
specialized staff of responsibilities. It was the more to be
regretted that Mrs. Ballinger, whose obligations to society were
bounded by the narrow scope of two parlour-maids, should have
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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 Case of The Lamp That Went Out by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: the sun that crept through the high barred windows and touched his
cold face and stiffened form as with a pitying caress. But no,
there was one other little spot of brightness in the silent place.
It was the wild aster which the dead man's hand still held tightly
clasped. The little purple flowers were quite fresh yet, and the
dewdrops clinging to them greeted the kiss of the sun's rays with
an answering smile.
CHAPTER II
THE BROKEN WILLOW TWIG
As soon as the corpse had been taken away, the police commissioner
returned to the station. But Muller remained there all alone to
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