| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Parmenides by Plato: not.
And would you feel equally undecided, Socrates, about things of which the
mention may provoke a smile?--I mean such things as hair, mud, dirt, or
anything else which is vile and paltry; would you suppose that each of
these has an idea distinct from the actual objects with which we come into
contact, or not?
Certainly not, said Socrates; visible things like these are such as they
appear to us, and I am afraid that there would be an absurdity in assuming
any idea of them, although I sometimes get disturbed, and begin to think
that there is nothing without an idea; but then again, when I have taken up
this position, I run away, because I am afraid that I may fall into a
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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 The Deserted Woman by Honore de Balzac: beginning of their adventure. And yet they had reached a fatal crisis,
which may be stated as clearly as any problem in mathematics.
Mme. la Comtesse de Nueil, Gaston's mother, a strait-laced and
virtuous person, who had made the late Baron happy in strictly legal
fashion would never consent to meet Mme. de Beauseant. Mme. de
Beauseant quite understood that the worthy dowager must of necessity
be her enemy, and that she would try to draw Gaston from his
unhallowed and immoral way of life. The Marquise de Beauseant would
willingly have sold her property and gone back to Geneva, but she
could not bring herself to do it; it would mean that she distrusted M.
de Nueil. Moreover, he had taken a great fancy to this very Valleroy
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