| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan by Honore de Balzac: To this question d'Arthez responded by curtly nodding his head. Maxime
de Trailles was a "bravo" of the social order, without faith or law,
capable of everything, ruining the women who trusted him, compelling
them to pawn their diamonds to give him money, but covering this
conduct with a brilliant varnish; a man of charming manners and
satanic mind. He inspired all who knew him with equal contempt and
fear; but as no one was bold enough to show him any sentiments but
those of the utmost courtesy he saw nothing of this public opinion, or
else he accepted and shared the general dissimulation. He owed to the
Comte de Marsay the greatest degree of elevation to which he could
attain. De Marsay, whose knowledge of Maxime was of long-standing,
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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 Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: by noble friendship and by noble art. There was none of us idle:
poets most of us, so ambitious were we: painters some of us, or
workers in metal or modellers, determined that we would try and
create for ourselves beautiful work: for the handicraftsman
beautiful work, for those who love us poems and pictures, for those
who love us not epigrams and paradoxes and scorn.
Well, we have done something in England and we will do something
more. Now, I do not want you, believe me, to ask your brilliant
young men, your beautiful young girls, to go out and make a road on
a swamp for any village in America, but I think you might each of
you have some art to practise.
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