| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac: then peer of France under two dynasties--has wormed itself through too
many tortuous underground ways not to allow us to suppose the
existence of secrets he might not care to have unmasked.
Now Gondreville is Grevin,--his confidant, and, as they say, his tool,
his catspaw for the last fifty years. But even supposing that by an
utter impossibility their close union should, under present
circumstances, be sundered, we are certainly sure of Achille Pigoult,
Grevin's successor, on whom, when the purchase of the chateau d'Arcis
was made in his office by the Marquis de Sallenauve, a fee was
bestowed of such an unusual amount that to accept it was virtually to
pledge himself.
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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 Symposium by Xenophon: be master of himself and sound of soul abstain from kisses imprinted
on fair lips.[42]
[36] Lit. "creeping down beside his ears." Cf. "Od." xi. 319:
{prin sphoin upo krotaphoisin ioulous
anthesai pukasai te genus euanthei lakhne.}
"(Zeus destroyed the twain) ere the curls had bloomed beneath
their temples, and darked their chins with the blossom of youth."
--Butcher and Lang. Cf. Theocr. xv. 85: {praton ioulon apo
krotaphon kataballon}, "with the first down upon his cheeks"
(Lang); Aesch. "Theb." 534.
[37] {pros to opisthen}, perhaps = "ad posteriorem capitis partem,"
The Symposium |
