| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Pierrette by Honore de Balzac: and the tortures of all kinds, moral and physical, to which the
Rogrons had subjected their cousin, and the two alarming forms of
illness which their cruelty had developed. Monsieur Tiphaine sent for
Auffray the notary, one of Pierrette's own relations on the maternal
side.
At this particular time the war between the Vinet party and the
Tiphaine party was at its height. The scandals which the Rogrons and
their adherents were disseminating through the town about the liaison
of Madame Tiphaine's mother with the banker du Tillet, and the
bankruptcy of her father (a forger, they said), were all the more
exasperating to the Tiphaines because these things were malicious
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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 Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: superiorities which are so repugnant to their vanity, another struggle
would follow hard upon their victory. It would not be very long before
the middle classes in their turn would be looked upon by the people as
a sort of noblesse; they would be a sorry kind of noblesse, it is
true, but their wealth and privileges would seem so much the more
hateful in the eyes of the people because they would have a closer
vision of these things. I do not say that the nation would come to
grief in the struggle, but society would perish anew; for the day of
triumph of a suffering people is always brief, and involves disorders
of the worst kind. There would be no truce in a desperate strife
arising out of an inherent or acquired difference of opinion among the
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