| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: easily imagine Villon an impatient wooer. One thing, at
least, is sure: that the affair terminated in a manner
bitterly humiliating to Master Francis. In presence of his
lady-love, perhaps under her window and certainly with her
connivance, he was unmercifully thrashed by one Noe le Joly -
beaten, as he says himself, like dirty linen on the washing-
board. It is characteristic that his malice had notably
increased between the time when he wrote the SMALL TESTAMENT
immediately on the back of the occurrence, and the time when
he wrote the LARGE TESTAMENT five years after. On the latter
occasion nothing is too bad for his "damsel with the twisted
|
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 A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: life; the word of God sanctified them; and she loved the lambs with
increased tenderness for the sake of the Lamb, and the doves because
of the Holy Ghost.
She found it hard, however, to think of the latter as a person, for
was it not a bird, a flame, and sometimes only a breath? Perhaps it is
its light that at night hovers over swamps, its breath that propels
the clouds, its voice that renders church-bells harmonious. And
Felicite worshipped devoutly, while enjoying the coolness and the
stillness of the church.
As for the dogma, she could not understand it and did not even try.
The priest discoursed, the children recited, and she went to sleep,
A Simple Soul |
