| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Albert Savarus by Honore de Balzac: interested in this absorbing ambition. Albert had appreciated the
priest's vast political capacities; and the priest, touched by the
young man's entreaties, had been willing to become his guide and
adviser in this culminating struggle. The Chapter did not love
Monsieur de Chavoncourt, for it was his wife's brother-in-law, as
President of the Tribunal, who had lost the famous suit for them in
the lower Court.
"You are betrayed, my dear fellow," said the shrewd and worthy Abbe,
in that gentle, calm voice which old priests acquire.
"Betrayed!" cried the lover, struck to the heart.
"By whom I know not at all," the priest replied. "But at the
Albert Savarus |
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 Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: tapering spires, and a number of bridges apparently supported on
nothing--in fact, a regular second Nineveh. Well, he made shift to
hire a lodging, but found everything so wonderfully furnished with
blinds and Persian carpets and so forth that he saw it would mean
throwing away a lot of money. True, as one walks the streets of St.
Petersburg one seems to smell money by the thousand roubles, but our
friend Kopeikin's bank was limited to a few score coppers and a little
silver--not enough to buy a village with! At length, at the price of a
rouble a day, he obtained a lodging in the sort of tavern where the
daily ration is a bowl of cabbage soup and a crust of bread; and as he
felt that he could not manage to live very long on fare of that kind
Dead Souls |
