| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Two Brothers by Honore de Balzac: have any children!--you think, I say, that that woman supplies all my
wants ever since I came back to Issoudun. If I am able to throw three
hundred francs a month to the dogs, and treat you to suppers,--as I do
to-night,--and lend money to all of you, you think I get the gold out
of Mademoiselle Flore Brazier's purse? Well, yes" [profound
sensation]. "Yes, ten thousand times yes! Yes, Mademoiselle Brazier is
aiming straight for the old man's property."
"She gets it from father to son," observed Goddet, in his corner.
"You think," continued Max, smiling at Goddet's speech, "that I intend
to marry Flore when Pere Rouget dies, and so this sister and her son,
of whom I hear to-night for the first time, will endanger my future?"
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: than his pleasure has been sweet. And you, you artful little thing,
have deserted him.--Well, come and see your work."
The old lady took Madame de Vaudremont's hand, and they rose.
"There," said Madame de Lansac, and her eyes showed her the stranger,
sitting pale and tremulous under the glare of the candles, "that is my
grandniece, the Comtesse de Soulanges; to-day she yielded at last to
my persuasion, and consented to leave the sorrowful room, where the
sight of her child gives her but little consolation. You see her? You
think her charming? Then imagine, dear Beauty, what she must have been
when happiness and love shed their glory on that face now blighted."
The Countess looked away in silence, and seemed lost in sad
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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 Chance by Joseph Conrad: like the gloom of villainous slums, of misery, of wretchedness, of a
starved and degraded existence. It was a relief that I could see
only their shabby hopeless backs. He was an awful ghost. But
indeed to call him a ghost was only a refinement of polite speech,
and a manner of concealing one's terror of such things. Prisons are
wonderful contrivances. Shut--open. Very neat. Shut--open. And
out comes some sort of corpse, to wander awfully in a world in which
it has no possible connections and carrying with it the appalling
tainted atmosphere of its silent abode. Marvellous arrangement. It
works automatically, and, when you look at it, the perfection makes
you sick; which for a mere mechanism is no mean triumph. Sick and
Chance |
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 Poems by Bronte Sisters: Or howling o'er their hopeless days,
And each with Frenzy's tongue;-
A brotherhood of misery,
Their smiles as sad as sighs;
Whose madness daily maddened me,
Distorting into agony
The bliss before my eyes!
So stood I, in Heaven's glorious sun,
And in the glare of Hell;
My spirit drank a mingled tone,
Of seraph's song, and demon's moan;
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