| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: not a desert; it is monotonous, but it does not weary; it has only
three elements, and yet it is varied."
"Women alone know how to render such impressions," I said. "You would
be the despair of a poet, dear soul that I divine so well!"
"The extreme heat of mid-day casts into those three expressions of the
infinite an all-powerful color," said Pauline, smiling. "I can here
conceive the poesy and the passion of the East."
"And I can perceive its despair."
"Yes," she said, "this dune is a cloister,--a sublime cloister."
We now heard the hurried steps of our guide; he had put on his Sunday
clothes. We addressed a few ordinary words to him; he seemed to think
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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 Altar of the Dead by Henry James: differences imperceptible. He knew his candles apart, up to the
colour of the flame, and would still have known them had their
positions all been changed. To other imaginations they might stand
for other things - that they should stand for something to be
hushed before was all he desired; but he was intensely conscious of
the personal note of each and of the distinguishable way it
contributed to the concert. There were hours at which he almost
caught himself wishing that certain of his friends would now die,
that he might establish with them in this manner a connexion more
charming than, as it happened, it was possible to enjoy with them
in life. In regard to those from whom one was separated by the
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