| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: with which she surrounds herself. Everything about her pleases the
eye; in her presence you breathe, as it were, your native air. This
woman is natural. There is no effort about her; she is aiming at no
effect; her feelings are shown simply, because they are true. Frank
herself, she does not wound the vanity of others; she accepts men as
God made them; pitying the vicious, forgiving defects and absurdities,
comprehending all ages, and vexed by nothing, because she has had the
sense and tact to foresee all. Tender and gay, she gratifies before
she consoles. You love her so well that if this angel did wrong you
would be ready to excuse her. If, for your happiness, you have met
with such a woman, you know Madame Firmiani.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: gatherings of workers on winter evenings, that the details vary widely
in poetic merit and incongruity of detail. It has been told by every
generation, handed down by grandames at the fireside, narrated night
and day, and the chronicle has changed its complexion somewhat in
every age. Like some great building that has suffered many
modifications of successive generations of architects, some sombre
weather-beaten pile, the delight of a poet, the story would drive the
commentator and the industrious winnower of words, facts, and dates to
despair. The narrator believes in it, as all superstitious minds in
Flanders likewise believe; and is not a whit wiser nor more credulous
than his audience. But as it would be impossible to make a harmony of
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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 Whirligigs by O. Henry: softly interrogative.
"Hey? No; for the whole job. It's enough, ain't
it?"
"My fee," said Lawyer Gooch, "would be one thousand
five hundred dollars. Five hundred dollars down, and
the remainder upon issuance of the divorce."
A loud whistle came from client number one. His
feet descended to the floor.
"Guess we can't close the deal," he said, arising, "I
cleaned up five hunderd dollars in a little real estate
dicker down in Susanville. I'd do anything I could to
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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 Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: perception of these causes"--I think we may deplore in him a genius
equal to Pascal, Lavoisier, or Laplace. His chimerical notions about
angels perhaps overruled his work too long; but was it not in trying
to make gold that the alchemists unconsciously created chemistry? At
the same time, Lambert, at a later period, studied comparative
anatomy, physics, geometry, and other sciences bearing on his
discoveries, and this was undoubtedly with the purpose of collecting
facts and submitting them to analysis--the only torch that can guide
us through the dark places of the most inscrutable work of nature. He
had too much good sense to dwell among the clouds of theories which
can all be expressed in a few words. In our day, is not the simplest
Louis Lambert |
