| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Mother by Owen Wister: get away from old Mrs. Beverly."
"'She cannot possibly be less than sixty-five,' Ethel presently
announced. 'And she is far more likely to be seventy.'"
"I thought it best to agree to any age that Ethel chose to give the old
lady."
"'Do you suppose,' Ethel continued, 'that she does it by telephone?'"
"'My dearest,' I responded, 'he must do it all for her, of course, you
know.'"
"'I doubt that very much, Richard. And she strikes me as being the sort
of character for whom a mere telephone would not be enough excitement.
The nerves of those people require more and more stimulants to give 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 The Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: virtue than Spanish wives are usually credited with, Don Juan was
compelled to spend his declining years beneath his own roof, with
no more scandal under it than if he had been an ancient country
parson. Occasionally he would take wife and son to task for
negligence in the duties of religion, peremptorily insisting that
they should carry out to the letter the obligations imposed upon
the flock by the Court of Rome. Indeed, he was never so well
pleased as when he had set the courtly Abbot discussing some case
of conscience with Dona Elvira and Felipe.
At length, however, despite the prodigious care that the great
magnifico, Don Juan Belvidero, took of himself, the days of
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