| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: quadrille, cleared the men away from the space they had filled while
talking in the middle of the large room. This hurried dialogue had
taken place during the usual interval between two dances, in front of
the fireplace of the great drawing-room of Gondreville's mansion. The
questions and answers of this very ordinary ballroom gossip had been
almost whispered by each of the speakers into his neighbor's ear. At
the same time, the chandeliers and the flambeaux on the chimney-shelf
shed such a flood of light on the two friends that their faces,
strongly illuminated, failed, in spite of their diplomatic discretion,
to conceal the faint expression of their feelings either from the
keen-sighted countess or the artless stranger. This espionage of
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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 Koran: to whomsoever He will of His servants, or doles it out to him. And
what ye expend in alms at all, He will repay it; for He is the best of
providers.
And on the day He will gather them all together, then He will say to
the angels, 'Are these those who used to worship you?
They shall say, 'Celebrated be thy praises! thou art our patron
instead of them. Nay, they used to worship the ginns, most of them
believe in them. But to-day they cannot control for each other, either
profit or harm;' and we will say to those who have done wrong,
'Taste ye the torment of the fire wherein ye did disbelieve!'
And when our signs are recited to them they say, 'This is only a man
 The Koran |