| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: proceeded to blockade the house in expectation of the postman.
"Have you a letter for Mademoiselle Mignon?" he said to that humble
functionary when he appeared.
"No, monsieur, none."
"This house has been a good customer to the post of late," remarked
the clerk.
"You may well say that," replied the man.
Modeste both heard and saw the little colloquy from her chamber
window, where she always posted herself behind the blinds at this
particular hour to watch for the postman. She ran downstairs, went
into the little garden, and called in an imperative voice:--
Modeste Mignon |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: human beings who miss their vocation are unhappy; they suffer, and
suffering gives birth to the bitterness of ill-will. In fact, before
an old maid blames herself for her isolation she blames others, and
there is but one step between reproach and the desire for revenge.
But more than this, the ill grace and want of charm noticeable in
these women are the necessary result of their lives. Never having felt
a desire to please, elegance and the refinements of good taste are
foreign to them. They see only themselves in themselves. This instinct
brings them, unconsciously, to choose the things that are most
convenient to themselves, at the sacrifice of those which might be
more agreeable to others. Without rendering account to their own minds
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw: purple from the "poor, bare, forked animal" that calls itself a king
and fancies itself a god, that one wonders what was the real nature of
the mysterious restraint that kept "Eliza and our James" from teaching
Shakespear to be civil to crowned heads, just as one wonders why
Tolstoy was allowed to go free when so many less terrible levellers
went to the galleys or Siberia. From the mature Shakespear we get no
such scenes of village snobbery as that between the stage country
gentleman Alexander Iden and the stage Radical Jack Cade. We get the
shepherd in As You Like It, and many honest, brave, human, and loyal
servants, beside the inevitable comic ones. Even in the Jingo play,
Henry V, we get Bates and Williams drawn with all respect and honor as
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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 Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: ceased to be Desplein's house surgeon, saw the great man's cab
standing at the corner of the Rue de Tournon and the Rue du
Petit-Lion, whence his friend jesuitically crept along by the
wall of Saint-Sulpice, and once more attended mass in front of
the Virgin's altar. It was Desplein, sure enough! The master-
surgeon, the atheist at heart, the worshiper by chance. The
mystery was greater than ever; the regularity of the phenomenon
complicated it. When Desplein had left, Bianchon went to the
sacristan, who took charge of the chapel, and asked him whether
the gentleman were a constant worshiper.
"For twenty years that I have been here," replied the man, "M.
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