| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Troll Garden and Selected Stories by Willa Cather: answered only by the pall of silence that fell over the company.
Then everyone began to talk at once, as though to correct a false
position. They spoke of him with a fervid, defiant admiration,
with the sort of hot praise that covers a double purpose. Imogen
fancied she could see that they felt a kind of relief at what the
man had done, even those who despised him for doing it; that they
felt a spiteful hate against Flavia, as though she had tricked
them, and a certain contempt for themselves that they had been
beguiled. She was reminded of the fury of the crowd in the fairy
tale, when once the child had called out that the king was in his
night clothes. Surely these people knew no more about Flavia
 The Troll Garden and Selected Stories |
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 The Recruit by Honore de Balzac: "Yes, we will save him," said the official, giving her a look of
passion; "if it costs us our life, we will save him."
"I am lost!" she murmured, as the prosecutor raised her courteously.
"Madame," he said, with an oratorical movement, "I will owe you only--
to yourself."
"Madame, he has come," cried Brigitte, rushing in and thinking her
mistress was alone.
At sight of the public prosecutor, the old woman, flushed and joyous
as she was, became motionless and livid.
"Who has come?" asked the prosecutor.
"A recruit, whom the mayor has sent to lodge here," replied Brigitte,
|