| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Recruit by Honore de Balzac: forward to some unknown future, as in girlhood. The most insensible
man would find himself in love with her, and yet be restrained by a
sort of respectful fear, inspired by her courtly and polished manners.
Her soul, naturally noble, but strengthened by cruel trials, was far
indeed from the common run, and men did justice to it. Such a soul
necessarily required a lofty passion; and the affections of Madame de
Dey were concentrated on a single sentiment,--that of motherhood. The
happiness and pleasure of which her married life was deprived, she
found in the passionate love she bore her son. She loved him not only
with the pure and deep devotion of a mother, but with the coquetry of
a mistress, and the jealousy of a wife. She was miserable away from
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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 Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain: And moreover, there is a startling kind of dramatic surprise
about it which I was not looking for. It is a distinct
improvement upon the threadbare form of Indian legend.
There are fifty Lover's Leaps along the Mississippi from whose
summit disappointed Indian girls have jumped, but this is the only
jump in the lot hat turned out in the right and satisfactory way.
What became of Winona?'
'She was a good deal jarred up and jolted: but she got herself
together and disappeared before the coroner reached the fatal spot;
and 'tis said she sought and married her true love, and wandered
with him to some distant clime, where she lived happy ever after,
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