| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: FERRAGUS,
CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS
by HONORE DE BALZAC
Translated By
Katharine Prescott Wormeley
DEDICATION
To Hector Berlioz.
PREFACE
Thirteen men were banded together in Paris under the Empire, all
imbued with one and the same sentiment, all gifted with sufficient
energy to be faithful to the same thought, with sufficient honor among
Ferragus |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: struggle in which the obstinacy of a bigot tries to meet the acumen of
a lawyer? What more terrible to endure than the acrimonious pin-pricks
to which a passionate soul prefers a dagger-thrust? Granville
neglected his home. Everything there was unendurable. His children,
broken by their mother's frigid despotism, dared not go with him to
the play; indeed, Granville could never give them any pleasure without
bringing down punishment from their terrible mother. His loving nature
was weaned to indifference, to a selfishness worse than death. His
boys, indeed, he saved from this hell by sending them to school at an
early age, and insisting on his right to train them. He rarely
interfered between his wife and her daughters; but he was resolved
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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 Allan Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard: deal, but fortunately nobody heard him. As Good said, it was
a horrible thing to have to do, and most unpleasantly like
cold-blooded murder.
And so with the last body that floated away down the current
of the Tana ended the incident of our attack on the Masai camp.
The spears and shields and other arms we took up to the Mission,
where they filled an outhouse. One incident, however, I must
not forget to mention. As we were returning from performing
the obsequies of our Masai friends we passed the hollow tree
where Alphonse had secreted himself in the morning. It so happened
that the little man himself was with us assisting in our unpleasant
Allan Quatermain |
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 Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: how they could do such things as these in a time of such general
calamity, and, as it were, in the face of God's most dreadful
judgements, when the plague was at their very doors, and, it may be,
in their very houses, and they did not know but that the dead-cart
might stop at their doors in a few hours to carry them to their graves.
I could not perceive that my discourse made much impression upon
them all that while, till it happened that there came two men of the
neighbourhood, hearing of the disturbance, and knowing my brother,
for they had been both dependents upon his family, and they came to
my assistance. These being, as I said, neighbours, presently knew
three of the women and told me who they were and where they lived;
A Journal of the Plague Year |
