| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett: later on. After this there was no more time for
conversation until we were seated in order at the long tables.
"I'm one that always dreads seeing some o' the folks that I
don't like, at such a time as this," announced Mrs. Todd privately
to me after a season of reflection. We were just waiting for the
feast to begin. "You wouldn't think such a great creatur' 's I be
could feel all over pins an' needles. I remember, the day I
promised to Nathan, how it come over me, just's I was feelin'
happy's I could, that I'd got to have an own cousin o' his for my
near relation all the rest o' my life, an' it seemed as if die I
should. Poor Nathan saw somethin' had crossed me,--he had very
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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 Aspern Papers by Henry James: which was the only thing she could conceive, for granted.
She told me she did not know what had got into her aunt;
she had changed so quickly, she had got some idea. I replied
that she must find out what the idea was and then let me know;
we would go and have an ice together at Florian's, and she
should tell me while we listened to the band.
"Oh, it will take me a long time to find out!" she said, rather ruefully;
and she could promise me this satisfaction neither for that night nor for
the next. I was patient now, however, for I felt that I had only to wait;
and in fact at the end of the week, one lovely evening after dinner,
she stepped into my gondola, to which in honor of the occasion I had
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