The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac: eyes enter the courtyard on horseback. Too soon a ghastly fact forced
itself on me. This Englishwoman, who seems to me about thirty-six, is
known as Mme. Gaston. This discovery was my deathblow.
I saw him next walking to the Tuileries with a couple of children. Oh!
my dear, two children, the living images of Gaston! The likeness is so
strong that it bears scandal on the face of it. And what pretty
children! in their handsome English costumes! She is the mother of his
children. Here is the key to the whole mystery.
The woman herself might be a Greek statue, stepped down from some
monument. Cold and white as marble, she moves sedately with a mother's
pride. She is undeniably beautiful but heavy as a man-of-war. There is
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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 Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: SOCRATES: And you use both the terms, 'wise' and 'foolish,' in reference
to something?
ALCIBIADES: I do.
SOCRATES: Would you call a person wise who can give advice, but does not
know whether or when it is better to carry out the advice?
ALCIBIADES: Decidedly not.
SOCRATES: Nor again, I suppose, a person who knows the art of war, but
does not know whether it is better to go to war or for how long?
ALCIBIADES: No.
SOCRATES: Nor, once more, a person who knows how to kill another or to
take away his property or to drive him from his native land, but not when
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