| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Ursula by Honore de Balzac: the red dot you made against Saint-Savinien's day in your almanac."
Ursula uttered a piercing cry, which alarmed the priest; she
remembered the scene when, on returning to Nemours, her godfather read
her soul, and took away the almanac.
"If that is so," she said, "then my visions are possibly true. My
godfather has appeared to me, as Jesus appeared to his disciples. He
was wrapped in yellow light; he spoke to me. I beg you to say a mass
for the repose of his soul and to implore the help of God that these
visions may cease, for they are destroying me."
She then related the three dreams with all their details, insisting on
the truth of what she said, on her own freedom of action, on the
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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 Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: bartering, however, he was not fortunate. He knew very well when to
play the fool, and sometimes contrived to turn things to his own
profit amid circumstances and surroundings from which a wise man could
rarely escape without loss.
His ingenious mind had contrived a means of persuading Ivan
Nikiforovitch; and he was proceeding bravely to face everything when
an unexpected occurrence somewhat disturbed his equanimity. There is
no harm, at this point, in admitting to the reader that, among other
things, Anton Prokofievitch was the owner of a pair of trousers of
such singular properties that whenever he put them on the dogs always
bit his calves. Unfortunately, he had donned this particular pair of
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
