| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: Grenadiere will never be in the market; it was brought once and sold,
but that was in 1690; and the owner parted with it for forty thousand
francs, reluctant as any Arab of the desert to relinquish a favorite
horse. Since then it has remained in the same family, its pride, its
patrimonial jewel, its Regent diamond. "While you behold, you have and
hold," says the bard. And from La Grenadiere you behold three valleys
of Touraine and the cathedral towers aloft in air like a bit of
filigree work. How can one pay for such treasures? Could one ever pay
for the health recovered there under the linden-trees?
In the spring of one of the brightest years of the Restoration, a lady
with her housekeeper and her two children (the oldest a boy thirteen
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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 Happy Prince and Other Tales by Oscar Wilde: hear that I can fly up into the sky, and come down in a shower of
golden rain."
"I don't think much of that," said the Duck, "as I cannot see what
use it is to any one. Now, if you could plough the fields like the
ox, or draw a cart like the horse, or look after the sheep like the
collie-dog, that would be something."
"My good creature," cried the Rocket in a very haughty tone of
voice, "I see that you belong to the lower orders. A person of my
position is never useful. We have certain accomplishments, and
that is more than sufficient. I have no sympathy myself with
industry of any kind, least of all with such industries as you seem
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