| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Turn of the Screw by Henry James: She hesitated--took a couple of days to consult and consider.
But the salary offered much exceeded her modest measure,
and on a second interview she faced the music, she engaged."
And Douglas, with this, made a pause that, for the benefit
of the company, moved me to throw in--
"The moral of which was of course the seduction exercised by the splendid
young man. She succumbed to it."
He got up and, as he had done the night before, went to the fire,
gave a stir to a log with his foot, then stood a moment with his back to us.
"She saw him only twice."
"Yes, but that's just the beauty of her passion."
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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 Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy: She felt almost ready to faint, so vivid was her sense
of the crisis. At almost any other moment of her life
she would have refused such proffered aid and company,
as she had refused them several times before; and now
the loneliness would not of itself have forced her to
do otherwise. But coming as the invitation did at the
particular juncture when fear and indignation at these
adversaries could be transformed by a spring of the
foot into a triumph over them, she abandoned herself to
her impulse, climbed the gate, put her toe upon his
instep, and scrambled into the saddle behind him. The
 Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman |