| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner: they sat on through the night.
The next morning at dawn, as Em passed through Tant Sannie's bedroom, she
found the Boer-woman pulling off her boots preparatory to climbing into
bed.
"Where is Piet Vander Walt?"
"Just gone," said Tant Sannie; "and I am going to marry him this day four
weeks. I am dead sleepy," she added; "the stupid thing doesn't know how to
talk love-talk at all," and she climbed into the four-poster, clothes and
all, and drew the quilt up to her chin.
...
On the day preceding Tant Sannie's wedding, Gregory Rose sat in the blazing
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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 Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: roof of a chapel still standing there as if to prove that the Catholic
religion--so deeply rooted in France--survives all else.
For forty years now has the Louvre been crying out by every gap in
these damaged walls, by every yawning window, "Rid me of these warts
upon my face!" This cutthroat lane has no doubt been regarded as
useful, and has been thought necessary as symbolizing in the heart of
Paris the intimate connection between poverty and the splendor that is
characteristic of the queen of cities. And indeed these chill ruins,
among which the Legitimist newspaper contracted the disease it is
dying of--the abominable hovels of the Rue du Musee, and the hoarding
appropriated by the shop stalls that flourish there--will perhaps live
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