| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: so pitilessly guarded and watched on the exterior, beneath a disordered
mass of paving-stones which partly concealed it, an iron grating,
placed flat and on a level with the soil. This grating,
made of stout, transverse bars, was about two feet square.
The frame of paving-stones which supported it had been torn up,
and it was, as it were, unfastened.
Through the bars a view could be had of a dark aperture,
something like the flue of a chimney, or the pipe of a cistern.
Jean Valjean darted forward. His old art of escape rose to his
brain like an illumination. To thrust aside the stones, to raise
the grating, to lift Marius, who was as inert as a dead body,
Les Miserables |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates by Howard Pyle: jewels, such as pearls, diamonds, rubies, etc., but with hardly a
score of honest farthings to jingle in his breeches pocket. He
consulted with a certain merchant of Bristol concerning the
disposal of the stones--a fellow not much more cleanly in his
habits of honesty than Avary himself. This worthy undertook to
act as Avary's broker. Off he marched with the jewels, and that
was the last that the pirate saw of his Indian treasure.
Perhaps the most famous of all the piratical names to American
ears are those of Capt. Robert Kidd and Capt. Edward Teach, or
"Blackbeard."
Nothing will be ventured in regard to Kidd at this time, nor in
Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: trouble her head about that ugly ape," said Bianchon.
"Horace," said Lousteau, "look here, O learned interpreter of human
nature, let us lay a trap for the Public Prosecutor; we shall be doing
our friend Gatien a service, and get a laugh out of it. I do not love
Public Prosecutors."
"You have a keen intuition of destiny," said Horace. "But what can we
do?"
"Well, after dinner we will tell sundry little anecdotes of wives
caught out by their husbands, killed, murdered under the most terrible
circumstances.--Then we shall see the faces that Madame de la Baudraye
and de Clagny will make."
The Muse of the Department |
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 The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: upon her face which changes it completely. Her countenance is like a
landscape,--dull in winter, glorious in summer; but the world will
always see it in winter. When she talks with friends on some literary
or philosophical topic, or on certain religious questions which
interest her, she is roused into appearing suddenly an unknown woman
of marvellous beauty."
This declaration, which was caused by observing the phenomenon that
formerly made Veronique so beautiful on her return from the holy
table, made a great noise in Limoges, where for a time the young
deputy, to whom the place of the /procureur-general/ was said to be
promised, played a leading part. In all provincial towns a man who
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