| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Chouans by Honore de Balzac: "Corentin! ah! I understand it all; he wrote the letter; he has
deceived me with diabolical art--as he alone can deceive."
With a piercing cry she flung herself on the sofa, tears rushing from
her eyes. Doubt and confidence were equally dreadful now. The marquis
knelt beside her and clasped her to his breast, saying, again and
again, the only words he was able to utter:--
"Why do you weep, my darling? there is no harm done; your reproaches
were all love; do not weep, I love you--I shall always love you."
Suddenly he felt her press him with almost supernatural force. "Do you
still love me?" she said, amid her sobs.
"Can you doubt it?" he replied in a tone that was almost melancholy.
The Chouans |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Bunner Sisters by Edith Wharton: days at a time, the doctor had me sent to a hospital."
"A hospital? Sister--sister!"
"It was better than being with him; and the doctors were real
kind to me. After the baby was born I was very sick and had to
stay there a good while. And one day when I was laying there Mrs.
Hochmuller came in as white as a sheet, and told me him and Linda
had gone off together and taken all her money. That's the last I
ever saw of him." She broke off with a laugh and began to cough
again.
Ann Eliza tried to persuade her to lie down and sleep, but the
rest of her story had to be told before she could be soothed into
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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 Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: mascles argent, two and one; third, paly of twelve, gules and argent;
fourth, or, on a pale endorsed, three batons fleurdelises gules;
supported by four griffon's-claws jessant from the sides of the
escutcheon, with the motto "En Lupus in Historia," was able to
surmount these rather satirical arms with a count's coronet.
Towards the close of the year 1830 Monsieur Rabourdin did some
business on hand which required him to visit the old ministry, where
the bureaus had all been in great commotion, owing to a general
removal of officials, from the highest to the lowest. This revolution
bore heaviest, in point of fact, upon the lackeys, who are not fond of
seeing new faces. Rabourdin had come early, knowing all the ways of
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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 Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley: classification, by far the completest handbook extant. He has
contrived in it to compress more sound knowledge of vast classes of
the animal kingdom than I ever saw before in so small a space. (35)
Miss Anne Pratt's "Things of the Sea-coast" is excellent; and still
better is Professor Harvey's "Sea-side Book," of which it is
impossible to speak too highly; and most pleasant it is to see a
man of genius and learning thus gathering the bloom of his varied
knowledge, to put it into a form equally suited to a child and a
SAVANT. Seldom, perhaps, has there been a little book in which so
vast a quantity of facts have been told so gracefully, simply,
without a taint of pedantry or cumbrousness - an excellence which
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