| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: he helped her into the gondola.
"Oh, all right: I daresay you're right. It simplifies things,"
Strefford placidly acquiesced.
She made no answer, and in silence they glided homeward.
Now, in the quiet of her own room, Susy lay and pondered on the
distance she had travelled during the last year. Strefford had
read her mind with his usual penetration. It was true that
there had been a time when she would have thought it perfectly
natural that Ellie should tell her everything; that the name of
young Davenant's successor should be confided to her as a matter
of course. Apparently even Ellie had been obscurely aware 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 A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: Improvisee/. This Croizeau used to hand over his halfpence with a
flourish and a 'There, fair lady!'
"Mme. Ida Bonamy the aunt was not long in finding out through a
servant that Croizeau, by popular report of the neighborhood of the
Rue de Buffault, where he lived, was a man of exceeding stinginess,
possessed of forty thousand francs per annum. A week after the
instalment of the charming librarian he was delivered of a pun:
" 'You lend me books (livres), but I give you plenty of francs in
return,' said he.
"A few days later he put on a knowing little air, as much as to say,
'I know you are engaged, but my turn will come one day; I am a
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