| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Unconscious Comedians by Honore de Balzac: When they reached the Vieille rue du Temple the three friends entered
one of the oldest houses in that street and passed up a shaking
staircase, the steps of which, caked with mud, led them in semi-
darkness, and through a stench peculiar to houses on an alley, to the
third story, where they beheld a door which painting alone could
render; literature would have to spend too many nights in suitably
describing it.
An old woman, in keeping with that door, and who might have been that
door in human guise, ushered the three friends into a room which
served as an ante-chamber, where, in spite of the warm atmosphere
which fills the streets of Paris, they felt the icy chill of crypts
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: having again the high flicker of their prime. He had to admit,
however, what she said. "Oh yes, there were times when we did go
far." He caught himself in the act of speaking as if it all were
over. Well, he wished it were; and the consummation depended for
him clearly more and more on his friend.
But she had now a soft smile. "Oh far--!"
It was oddly ironic. "Do you mean you're prepared to go further?"
She was frail and ancient and charming as she continued to look at
him, yet it was rather as if she had lost the thread. "Do you
consider that we went far?"
"Why I thought it the point you were just making--that we HAD
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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 Faraday as a Discoverer by John Tyndall: entertained the opinion that the discoverer of a great law or
principle had a right to the 'spoils'--this was his term--arising
from its illustration; and guided by the principle he had discovered,
his wonderful mind, aided by his wonderful ten fingers, overran in a
single autumn this vast domain, and hardly left behind him the shred
of a fact to be gathered by his successors.
And here the question may arise in some minds, What is the use of it
all? The answer is, that if man's intellectual nature thirsts for
knowledge, then knowledge is useful because it satisfies this
thirst. If you demand practical ends, you must, I think, expand your
definition of the term practical, and make it include all that
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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 Another Study of Woman by Honore de Balzac: The Imaginary Mistress
The Middle Classes
Cousin Betty
The Country Parson
In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following:
La Grande Breteche
Blondet, Emile
Jealousies of a Country Town
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
Modeste Mignon
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