| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: have been confided to him. If readers were not surfeited with horrors
served up to them of late in cold blood, he might reveal the calm
atrocities, the surpassing tragedies concealed under family life. But
he chooses in preference gentler events,--those where scenes of purity
succeed the tempests of passion; where woman is radiant with virtue
and beauty. To the honor of the THIRTEEN be it said that there are
such scenes in their history, which may have the honor of being some
day published as a foil of tales to listeners,--that race apart from
others, so curiously energetic, and so interesting in spite of its
crimes.
An author ought to be above converting his tale, when the tale is
Ferragus |
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 Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: strongly illuminated, failed, in spite of their diplomatic discretion,
to conceal the faint expression of their feelings either from the
keen-sighted countess or the artless stranger. This espionage of
people's thoughts is perhaps to idle persons one of the pleasures they
find in society, while numbers of disappointed numskulls are bored
there without daring to own it.
Fully to appreciate the interest of this conversation, it is necessary
to relate an incident which would presently serve as an invisible
bond, drawing together the actors in this little drama, who were at
present scattered through the rooms.
At about eleven o'clock, just as the dancers were returning to their
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