| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Passion in the Desert by Honore de Balzac: like them.
"Well," she said, "I have read your plea in favor of beasts; but how
did two so well adapted to understand each other end?"
"Ah, well! you see, they ended as all great passions do end--by a
misunderstanding. For some reason ONE suspects the other of treason;
they don't come to an explanation through pride, and quarrel and part
from sheer obstinacy."
"Yet sometimes at the best moments a single word or a look is enough--
but anyhow go on with your story."
"It's horribly difficult, but you will understand, after what the old
villain told me over his champagne. He said--'I don't know if I hurt
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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 My Aunt Margaret's Mirror by Walter Scott: cut the Gordian knot by admitting the existence of supernatural
agency."
"But, my dear aunt," said I, "what became of the man of skill?"
"Oh, he was too good a fortune-teller not to be able to foresee
that his own destiny would be tragical if he waited the arrival
of the man with the silver greyhound upon his sleeve. He made,
as we say, a moonlight flitting, and was nowhere to be seen or
heard of. Some noise there was about papers or letters found in
the house; but it died away, and Doctor Baptista Damiotti was
soon as little talked of as Galen or Hippocrates."
"And Sir Philip Forester," said I, "did he too vanish for ever
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