| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: figure; she alone knew the secret of that chaste gait which innocently
set into relief the many beauties of that attractive form. Yes, that
was the shawl, and that the velvet bonnet which she wore in the
mornings. On her gray silk stockings not a spot, on her shoes not a
splash. The shawl held tightly round the bust disclosed, vaguely, its
charming lines; and the young man, who had often seen those shoulders
at a ball, knew well the treasures that the shawl concealed. By the
way a Parisian woman wraps a shawl around her, and the way she lifts
her feet in the street, a man of intelligence in such studies can
divine the secret of her mysterious errand. There is something, I know
not what, of quivering buoyancy in the person, in the gait; the woman
Ferragus |
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 Princess of Parms by Edgar Rice Burroughs: Twenty minutes after the first volley the great fleet swung
trailing off in the direction from which it had first appeared.
Several of the craft were limping perceptibly, and seemed
but barely under the control of their depleted crews. Their fire
had ceased entirely and all their energies seemed focused
upon escape. Our warriors then rushed up to the roofs of the
buildings which we occupied and followed the retreating armada
with a continuous fusillade of deadly fire.
One by one, however, the ships managed to dip below the
crests of the outlying hills until only one barely moving craft
was in sight. This had received the brunt of our fire and
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