| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: Emperor!'
"Was that natural? Would you have done this for a mere man?
"Thereupon, having fitted up all his family, and things having so
turned out that the Empress Josephine (a good woman for all that) had
no children, he was obliged to part company with her, although he
loved her not a little. But he must have children, for reasons of
State. All the crowned heads of Europe, when they heard of his
difficulty, squabbled among themselves as to who should find him a
wife. He married an Austrian princess, so they say, who was the
daughter of the Caesars, a man of antiquity whom everybody talks
about, not only in our country, where it is said that most things were
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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 Miracle Mongers and Their Methods by Harry Houdini: which the Romans called the Altar of Vesta.
The sacred fire itself was known as Vesta, and
its burning was considered a proof of the
presence of the goddess. The Persians had
such a building in each town and village; and
the Egyptians, such a fire in every temple;
while the Mexicans, Natches, Peruvians and
Mayas kept their ``national fires'' burning
upon great pyramids. Eventually the keeping
of such fires became a sacred rite, and the
``Eternal Lamps'' kept burning in synagogues
Miracle Mongers and Their Methods |
