| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Distinguished Provincial at Paris by Honore de Balzac: He mixed fearlessly now with the crowd which surged to and fro in the
buildings; he even swaggered a little because he had a mistress; and
he walked into Dauriat's shop in an offhand manner because he was a
journalist.
He found himself among distinguished men; gave a hand to Blondet and
Nathan and Finot, and to all the coterie with whom he had been
fraternizing for a week. He was a personage, he thought, and he
flattered himself that he surpassed his comrades. That little flick of
the wine did him admirable service; he was witty, he showed that he
could "howl with the wolves."
And yet, the tacit approval, the praises spoken and unspoken on which
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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 Master of the World by Jules Verne: amid the sliding stones, held in place only occasionally by wiry
bushes. At length after a weary struggle, we gained some two
hundred feet further upward and found ourselves facing a great gash,
which, broke the earth at this spot. Here and there were scattered
roots recently uptorn, branches broken off, huge stones reduced to
powder, as if an avalanche had rushed down this flank of the mountain.
"That must be the path taken by the huge block which I broke away
from the Great Eyrie," commented James Bruck.
"No doubt," answered Mr. Smith, "and I think we had better follow the
road that it has made for us."
It was indeed this gash that Harry Horn had selected for our ascent.
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