| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini: upon these new ideas merely as a fencer exercises his eye and wrist
with the foils, without ever suffering himself to be deluded into
supposing the issue a real one, he found himself suddenly converted
into a revolutionary firebrand, committed to revolutionary action
of the most desperate kind. The representative and delegate of a
nobleman in the States of Brittany, he found himself simultaneously
and incongruously the representative and delegate of the whole Third
Estate of Rennes.
It is difficult to determine to what extent, in the heat of passion
and swept along by the torrent of his own oratory, he might
yesterday have succeeded in deceiving himself. But it is at least
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Enemies of Books by William Blades: Electric light in British Museum, 32.
Ephesus, 5.
"Eracles," 111.
"Evil eye," the, 6.
"Exciirsion, The," 139.
Fire, an enemy of books, 1-16.--of London, 10.
Flint (Weston), account of black-beetles in New York
libraries, 95.
Folklore, ancient, 5.
"Foxey" books, 25.
Francis (St.) and the friars, 37.
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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 Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau by Honore de Balzac: salary of two thousand five hundred francs,--all the functions in the
household of the king being overcrowded with noble supernumeraries to
whom promises had already been made.
This success was but one part of the task before Madame Birotteau. The
poor woman now went to the "Maison du Chat-qui-pelote," in the Rue
Saint-Denis, to find Joseph Lebas. As she walked along she met Madame
Roguin in a brilliant equipage, apparently making purchases. Their
eyes met; and the shame which the rich woman could not hide as she
looked at the ruined woman, gave Constance fresh courage.
"Never will I roll in a carriage bought with the money of others," she
said to herself.
Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau |
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 Albert Savarus by Honore de Balzac: Girardet is long-winded, I had leisure to study the stranger. He
certainly is no ordinary man. There is more than one secret behind
that face, at once so terrible and so gentle, patient and yet
impatient, broad and yet hollow. I saw, too, that he stooped a little,
like all men who have some heavy burden to bear."
"Why did so eloquent a man leave Paris? For what purpose did he come
to Besancon?" asked pretty Madame de Chavoncourt. "Could no one tell
him how little chance a stranger has of succeeding here? The good
folks of Besancon will make use of him, but they will not allow him to
make use of them. Why, having come, did he make so little effort that
it needed a freak of the President's to bring him forward?"
Albert Savarus |
