The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Tapestried Chamber by Walter Scott: possession of an Englishman, was heard high above the
acclamations of victory. He seemed for an instant animated by
all his wonted power; for he started from the rock on which he
sat, and while the garments with which he had been invested fell
from his wasted frame, and showed the ruins of his strength, he
tossed his arms wildly to heaven, and uttered a cry of
indignation, horror, and despair, which, tradition says, was
heard to a preternatural distance, and resembled the cry of a
dying lion more than a human sound.
His friends received him in their arms as he sank utterly
exhausted by the effort, and bore him back to his castle in mute
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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 Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton: ball, never failed to appear at the Opera; indeed, she
always gave her ball on an Opera night in order to
emphasise her complete superiority to household cares,
and her possession of a staff of servants competent to
organise every detail of the entertainment in her absence.
The Beauforts' house was one of the few in New
York that possessed a ball-room (it antedated even
Mrs. Manson Mingott's and the Headly Chiverses');
and at a time when it was beginning to be thought
"provincial" to put a "crash" over the drawing-room
floor and move the furniture upstairs, the possession of
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