| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: Normand, and cut by Duplat.--the names are signed," said Lousteau.
"Well, and then?" said such of the audience as understood.
"That is the end of the chapter," said Lousteau. "The fact of this
tailpiece changes my views as to the authorship. To have his book got
up, under the Empire, with vignettes engraved on wood, the writer must
have been a Councillor of State, or Madame Barthelemy-Hadot, or the
late lamented Desforges, or Sewrin."
" 'Adolphe was silent.'--Ah!" cried Bianchon, "the Duchess must have
been under thirty."
"If there is no more, invent a conclusion," said Madame de la
Baudraye.
The Muse of the Department |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: despise the other, whether from a knowledge of some private and latent
fact which degrades him, or of a secret condition, or even of a coming
revenge, those two men divine each other's souls, and are able to
measure the gulf which separates or ought to separate them. They
observe each other unconsciously; their minds are preoccupied by
themselves; through their looks, their gestures, an indefinable
emanation of their thought transpires; there's a magnet between them.
I don't know which has the strongest power of attraction, vengeance or
crime, hatred or insult. Like a priest who cannot consecrate the host
in presence of an evil spirit, each is ill at ease and distrustful;
one is polite, the other surly, but I know not which; one colors or
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Royalty Restored/London Under Charles II by J. Fitzgerald Molloy: depriving him of motion until the artery was loosened, when he
recovered; and again, it is recorded that Dr. Charleton cut the
spleen out of a living dog with good success.
The weighty discourses of the learned men who constituted the
society frequently delighted his majesty; though it must be
confessed he sometimes laughed at them, and once sorely puzzled
them by asking the following question. "Supposing," said
Charles, assuming a serious expression, and speaking in a solemn
tone, "two pails of water were placed in two different scales and
weighed alike, and that a live bream or small fish was put into
one, now why should not the pail in which it was placed weigh
|
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 Voice of the City by O. Henry: into the exclusive and calm current of life in the Lotus
so tactfully and silently that not a ripple alarmed his
fellow-seekers after rest. He ate in the Lotus and
of its patronym, and was lulled into blissful peace
with the other fortunate mariners. In one day he
acquired his table and his waiter and the fear lest the
panting chasers after repose that kept Broadway
warm should pounce upon and destroy this contiguous
but covert haven.
After dinner on the next day after the arrival of
Harold Farrington Madame Beaumont dropped her
The Voice of the City |
