| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: his loathly deeds. He, well skilled in the saving of a soul and
the snatching it from the jaw of the wily serpent, charmed away
his sorrow with words of salvation, and pledged him forgiveness
and promised him a merciful Judge. Then, after he had instructed
and charged him to fast many days, he cleansed him in Holy
Baptism. And all the days of his life Theudas heartily repented
him of his misdeeds, with tears and sighs seeking the favour of
God.
XXXIII.
As for the king, when things fortuned thus, he was completely
bewildered, and plainly showed his sore vexation and tumult of
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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 At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: young proprietors hoped to inveigle the old draper into some risky
discount, which, as was his wont, he never refused point-blank. Two
good Normandy horses were dying of their own fat in the stables of the
big house; Madame Guillaume never used them but to drag her on Sundays
to high Mass at the parish church. Three times a week the worthy
couple kept open house. By the influence of his son-in-law
Sommervieux, Monsieur Guillaume had been named a member of the
consulting board for the clothing of the Army. Since her husband had
stood so high in office, Madame Guillaume had decided that she must
receive; her rooms were so crammed with gold and silver ornaments, and
furniture, tasteless but of undoubted value, that the simplest room in
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