| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbot: and his male friends; and for a lady in a family of distinction
to turn her back upon her husband would be regarded as a kind
of portent, involving loss of STATUS. But, as I shall soon shew,
this custom, though it has the advantage of safety,
is not without its disadvantages.
In the house of the Working Man or respectable Tradesman --
where the wife is allowed to turn her back upon her husband,
while pursuing her household avocations -- there are at least
intervals of quiet, when the wife is neither seen nor heard,
except for the humming sound of the continuous Peace-cry;
but in the homes of the upper classes there is too often no peace.
 Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions |
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 Another Study of Woman by Honore de Balzac: child were to hesitate two seconds longer, every intelligent spectator
feels that he would ask Desdemona's forgiveness. Thus, killing the
woman is the act of a boy.--She wept as we parted, so much was she
distressed at being unable to nurse me herself. She wished she were my
valet, in whose happiness she found a cause of envy, and all this was
as elegantly expressed, oh! as Clarissa might have written in her
happiness. There is always a precious ape in the prettiest and most
angelic woman!"
At these words all the women looked down, as if hurt by this brutal
truth so brutally stated.
"I will say nothing of the night, nor of the week I spent," de Marsay
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