| 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 to marry. A cold shiver ran through Rastignac at the sight of
so many happy folk in Paris going to and fro unconscious of the
impending loss; even so a young commander might shiver at the first
sight of an army drawn up before a battle. He saw the d'Aiglemonts,
the d'Aldriggers, and Beaudenord. Poor little Isaure and Godefroid
playing at love, what were they but Acis and Galatea under the rock
which a hulking Polyphemus was about to send down upon them?"
"That monkey of a Bixiou has something almost like talent," said
Blondet.
"Oh! so I am not maundering now?" asked Bixiou, enjoying his success
as he looked round at his surprised auditors.--"For two months past,"
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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 Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: grafting one affair upon another to make the gains pay for the losses.
He was always between wind and water, keeping himself afloat by his
bold, sudden strokes and the nervous energy of his play. Hither and
thither he would swim over the vast sea of interests in Paris, in
quest of some little isle that should be so far a debatable land that
he might abide upon it. Clearly Couture was not in his proper place.
As for the fourth and most malicious personage, his name will be
enough--it was Bixiou! Not (alas!) the Bixiou of 1825, but the Bixiou
of 1836, a misanthropic buffoon, acknowledged supreme, by reason of
his energetic and caustic wit; a very fiend let loose now that he saw
how he had squandered his intellect in pure waste; a Bixiou vexed by
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: so much to grieve over."
"Lisbeth is not come back. I shall have to sing the song of
/Malbrouck/," said Hortense. "I do long for some news of Wenceslas!--
What does he live on? He has not done a thing these two years."
"Victorin saw him, he told me, with that horrible woman not long ago;
and he fancied that she maintains him in idleness.--If you only would,
dear soul, you might bring your husband back to you yet."
Hortense shook her head.
"Believe me," Celestine went on, "the position will ere long be
intolerable. In the first instance, rage, despair, indignation, gave
you strength. The awful disasters that have come upon us since--two
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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 Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: extremity - and took the water. But when I came to the ship my
difficulty was still greater to know how to get on board; for, as
she lay aground, and high out of the water, there was nothing
within my reach to lay hold of. I swam round her twice, and the
second time I spied a small piece of rope, which I wondered I did
not see at first, hung down by the fore-chains so low, as that with
great difficulty I got hold of it, and by the help of that rope I
got up into the forecastle of the ship. Here I found that the ship
was bulged, and had a great deal of water in her hold, but that she
lay so on the side of a bank of hard sand, or, rather earth, that
her stern lay lifted up upon the bank, and her head low, almost to
Robinson Crusoe |
