| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Glasses by Henry James: bright concretion of Flora Saunt, an exhibitability that held its
own even against the most plausible pinkness of the most developed
dolls. A huge quarter of the place, the biggest bazaar "on earth,"
was peopled with these and other effigies and fantasies, as well as
with purchasers and vendors haggard alike, in the blaze of the gas,
with hesitations. I was just about to appeal to Flora to avert
that stage of my errand when I saw that she was accompanied by a
gentleman whose identity, though more than a year had elapsed, came
back to me from the Folkestone cliff. It had been associated on
that scene with showy knickerbockers; at present it overflowed more
splendidly into a fur-trimmed overcoat. Lord Iffield's presence
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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 Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: The soldiers were barely in possession of their arms; they had taken
up their positions at random. They were frozen with terror; they stood
undecided.
Javelins, arrows, phalaricas, and masses of lead were already being
showered down upon them from the towers. Some clung to the fringes of
the caparisons in order to climb up, but their hands were struck off
with cutlasses and they fell backwards upon the swords' points. The
pikes were too weak and broke, and the elephants passed through the
phalanxes like wild boars through tufts of grass; they plucked up the
stakes of the camp with their trunks, and traversed it from one end to
the other, overthrowing the tents with their breasts. All the
 Salammbo |