| 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: perform all her religious duties, and we shall save her yet."
Within ten days of this meeting the Hotel de la Baudraye was shut up.
The Countess, the children, and her mother, in short, the whole
household, including a tutor, had gone away to Sancerre, where Dinah
intended to spend the summer. She was everything that was nice to the
Count, people said.
And so the Muse of Sancerre had simply come back to family and married
life; but certain evil tongues declared that she had been compelled to
come back, for that the little peer's wishes would no doubt be
fulfilled--he hoped for a little girl.
Gatien and Monsieur Gravier lavished every care, every servile
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 Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: whether you get a stronger and clearer idea of Robertson the
historian from Raeburn's palette or Dugald Stewart's woolly
and evasive periods. And then the portraits are both signed
and countersigned. For you have, first, the authority of the
artist, whom you recognise as no mean critic of the looks and
manners of men; and next you have the tacit acquiescence of
the subject, who sits looking out upon you with inimitable
innocence, and apparently under the impression that he is in a
room by himself. For Raeburn could plunge at once through all
the constraint and embarrassment of the sitter, and present
the face, clear, open, and intelligent as at the most
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