| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Adieu by Honore de Balzac: "It is easy to see you have never loved," replied the councillor, with
a look that was pitifully comic; "you are as relentless as article 304
of the penal code."
Philippe de Sucy quivered; his broad brow contracted; his face became
as sombre as the skies above them. Some memory of awful bitterness
distorted for a moment his features, but he said nothing. Like all
strong men, he drove down his emotions to the depths of his heart;
thinking perhaps, as simple characters are apt to think, that there
was something immodest in unveiling griefs when human language cannot
render their depths and may only rouse the mockery of those who do not
comprehend them. Monsieur d'Albon had one of those delicate natures
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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 The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther: that all their life they shall neither prosper nor accumulate anything.
And indeed, if there were a well-ordered government in the land, such
wantonness might soon be checked and prevented, as was the custom in
ancient times among the Romans, where such characters were promptly
seized by the pate in a way that others took warning.
No more shall all the rest prosper who change the open free market into
a carrion-pit of extortion and a den of robbery, where the poor are
daily overcharged, new burdens and high prices are imposed, and every
one uses the market according to his caprice, and is even defiant and
brags as though it were his fair privilege and right to sell his goods
for as high a price as he please, and no one had a right to say a word
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