| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: Malvina, deeply humiliated as she was by du Tillet's carelessness,
loved him too well to shut the door upon him. With her, an
enthusiastic, highly-wrought, sensitive girl, love sometimes got the
better of pride, and pride again overcame wounded love. Our friend
Ferdinand, cool and self-possessed, accepted her tenderness, and
breathed the atmosphere with the quiet enjoyment of a tiger licking
the blood that dyes his throat. He would come to make sure of it with
new proofs; he never allowed two days to pass without a visit to the
Rue Joubert.
"At that time the rascal possessed something like eighteen hundred
thousand francs; money must have weighted very little with him in the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Chouans by Honore de Balzac: as it were by accident. An inexplicable fear seemed to have overcome
her coyness, and her love was visible for a moment without a veil.
Unfortunately for both of them, Madame du Gua saw it all; like a miser
who gives a feast, she seemed to count the morsels and begrudge the
wine.
Absorbed in their happiness the lovers arrived, without any
consciousness of the distance they had traversed, at that part of the
road which passed through the valley of Ernee. There Francine noticed
and showed to her companions a number of strange forms which seemed to
move like shadows among the trees and gorse that surrounded the
fields. When the carriage came within range of these shadows a volley
The Chouans |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain: cheerier by the sorceress's talk, which was about this
sufferer and his crime. He had been accused by an
anonymous informer, of having killed a stag in the
royal preserves. I said:
"Anonymous testimony isn't just the right thing,
your Highness. It were fairer to confront the accused
with the accuser."
"I had not thought of that, it being but of small
consequence. But an I would, I could not, for that
the accuser came masked by night, and told the
forester, and straightway got him hence again, and so
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court |
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 Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: was supposed to expect some patronage in return for his championship.
Marcas, disgusted by men and things, worn out by five years of
fighting, regarded as a free lance rather than as a great leader,
crushed by the necessity of earning his daily bread, which hindered
him from gaining ground, in despair at the influence exerted by money
over mind, and given over to dire poverty, buried himself in a garret,
to make thirty sous a day, the sum strictly answering to his needs.
Meditation had leveled a desert all round him. He read the papers to
be informed of what was going on. Pozzo di Borgo had once lived like
this for some time.
Marcas, no doubt, was planning a serious attack, accustoming himself
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