| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The American by Henry James: you will like it. And then it will be very pleasant for you,
having your sister over there. It will be pleasant for her to
have you, too. Yes, Valentin," continued Newman, pressing his
friend's arm genially, "I think I see just the opening for you.
Keep quiet and I'll push you right in."
Newman pursued this favoring strain for some time longer.
The two men strolled about for a quarter of an hour.
Valentin listened and questioned, many of his questions making
Newman laugh loud at the naivete of his ignorance of the vulgar
processes of money-getting; smiling himself, too, half ironical
and half curious. And yet he was serious; he was fascinated
|
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: "He spent five or six nights over it; he devoured documents and
briefs; he had seven or eight interviews of several hours with me,"
continued Monsieur de Grancey, who had just reappeared at the Hotel de
Rupt for the first time in three weeks. "In short, Monsieur Savaron
has just completely beaten the celebrated lawyer whom our adversaries
had sent for from Paris. This young man is wonderful, the bigwigs say.
Thus the chapter is twice victorious; it has triumphed in law and also
in politics, since it has vanquished Liberalism in the person of the
Counsel of our Municipality.--'Our adversaries,' so our advocate said,
'must not expect to find readiness on all sides to ruin the
Archbishoprics.'--The President was obliged to enforce silence. All
Albert Savarus |
