| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: a capitalist, a magistrate like a functionary, a royalist with pious
and monarchical sentiments, a bourgeois as one of themselves. In
short, wherever he was he was just what he ought to be; he left
Gaudissart at the door when he went in, and picked him up when he came
out.
Until 1830 the illustrious Gaudissart was faithful to the article
Paris. In his close relation to the caprices of humanity, the varied
paths of commerce had enabled him to observe the windings of the heart
of man. He had learned the secret of persuasive eloquence, the knack
of loosening the tightest purse-strings, the art of rousing desire in
the souls of husbands, wives, children, and servants; and what is
|
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 Three Taverns by Edwin Arlington Robinson: Than I who tell you this, or more to gain;
And whether I speak as one to be destroyed
For no good end outside his own destruction,
Time shall have more to say than men shall hear
Between now and the coming of that harvest
Which is to come. Before it comes, I go --
By the short road that mystery makes long
For man's endurance of accomplishment.
I shall have more to say when I am dead.
The False Gods
"We are false and evanescent, and aware of our deceit,
|
