| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tao Teh King by Lao-tze: the Mystery. Where the Mystery is the deepest is the gate of all that
is subtle and wonderful.
2. 1. All in the world know the beauty of the beautiful, and in doing
this they have (the idea of) what ugliness is; they all know the skill
of the skilful, and in doing this they have (the idea of) what the
want of skill is.
2. So it is that existence and non-existence give birth the one to
(the idea of) the other; that difficulty and ease produce the one (the
idea of) the other; that length and shortness fashion out the one the
figure of the other; that (the ideas of) height and lowness arise from
the contrast of the one with the other; that the musical notes and
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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 Marriage Contract by Honore de Balzac: "Don't be uneasy as to that! But now, at this moment, what am I to
do?"
"Hold firm to my conditions. They will consent, for no one's apparent
interest is injured. Madame Evangelista is very anxious to marry her
daughter; I see that in her little game--Beware of her!"
Paul returned to the salon, where he found his future mother-in-law
conversing in a low tone with Solonet. Natalie, kept outside of these
mysterious conferences, was playing with a screen. Embarrassed by her
position, she was thinking to herself: "How odd it is that they tell
me nothing of my own affairs."
The younger notary had seized, in the main, the future effect of the
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