| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: not pardon this heart-searching goodness on his father's part.
"What a remorseful memory for me!" he cried, hypocritically.
"Poor Juanino," the dying man went on, in a smothered voice, "I
have always been so kind to you, that you could not surely desire
my death?"
"Oh, if it were only possible to keep you here by giving up a
part of my own life!" cried Don Juan.
("We can always SAY this sort of thing," the spendthrift thought;
"it is as if I laid the whole world at my mistress' feet.")
The thought had scarcely crossed his mind when the old poodle
barked. Don Juan shivered; the response was so intelligent that
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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 A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: At the moment when the village roofs began to show like a faint gray
line on the horizon, we met a fisherman, a poor man returning to
Croisic. His feet were bare; his linen trousers ragged round the
bottom; his shirt of common sailcloth, and his jacket tatters. This
abject poverty pained us; it was like a discord amid our harmonies. We
looked at each other, grieving mutually that we had not at that moment
the power to dip into the treasury of Aboul Casem. But we saw a
splendid lobster and a crab fastened to a string which the fisherman
was dangling in his right hand, while with the left he held his tackle
and his net.
We accosted him with the intention of buying his haul,--an idea which
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