| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: she were such an abyss of insincerity as to dissemble distrust
under such frankness, she must at least be more subtle than to
bring her doubts to her rival for solution. The situation seemed
one through which one could no longer move in a penumbra, and he
let in a burst of light with the direct query: "Won't you explain
what you mean?"
Mrs. Vervain sat silent, not provokingly, as though to prolong
his distress, but as if, in the attenuated phraseology he had
taught her, it was difficult to find words robust enough to meet
his challenge. It was the first time he had ever asked her to
explain anything; and she had lived so long in dread of offering
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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 A Passion in the Desert by Honore de Balzac: M. Martin. She had just been looking at that daring speculator
"working with his hyena,"--to speak in the style of the programme.
"By what means," she continued, "can he have tamed these animals to
such a point as to be certain of their affection for----"
"What seems to you a problem," said I, interrupting, "is really quite
natural."
"Oh!" she cried, letting an incredulous smile wander over her lips.
"You think that beasts are wholly without passions?" I asked her.
"Quite the reverse; we can communicate to them all the vices arising
in our own state of civilization."
She looked at me with an air of astonishment.
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