| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: has been in Paris about a month--
"A month!" thought Eugenie, her hand falling to her side. After a
pause she resumed the letter,--
I had to dance attendance before I was allowed to see the future
Vicomte d'Aubrion. Though all Paris is talking of his marriage and
the banns are published--
"He wrote to me after that!" thought Eugenie. She did not conclude the
thought; she did not cry out, as a Parisian woman would have done,
"The villain!" but though she said it not, contempt was none the less
present in her mind.
The marriage, however, will not come off. The Marquis d'Aubrion
Eugenie Grandet |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: what I think of her; she is a woman between thirty and thirty-five;
faded complexion, handsome eyes, flat figure, contralto voice worn
out, much dressed, rather rouged, charming manners; in short, my dear
fellow, the remains of a pretty woman who is still worth the trouble
of a passion." This remark is from the species Fop, who has just
breakfasted, doesn't weigh his words, and is about to mount his horse.
At that particular moment Fops are pitiless.
"Magnificent collection of pictures in her house; go and see them by
all means," answers another. "Nothing finer." You have questioned one
of the species Connoisseur. He leaves you to go to Perignon's or
Tripet's. To him, Madame Firmiani is a collection of painted canvases.
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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 The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: politician, and though a faithful Democrat in principle, neither
received nor held his office with any reference to political
services. Had it been otherwise -- had an active politician been
put into this influential post, to assume the easy task of making
head against a Whig Collector, whose infirmities withheld him
from the personal administration of his office -- hardly a man of
the old corps would have drawn the breath of official life within
a month after the exterminating angel had come up the
Custom-House steps. According to the received code in such
matters, it would have been nothing short of duty, in a
politician, to bring every one of those white heads under the axe
The Scarlet Letter |
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 An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: surely bring the nobility down to the dust by means more certain than
that of the guillotine, because less violent. The peerage without
heredity; the National Guard, which puts on the same camp-bed the
corner grocer and the marquis; the abolition of the entails demanded
by a bourgeois lawyer; the Catholic Church deprived of its supremacy;
and all the other legislative inventions of August, 1830,--were to du
Bousquier the wisest possible application of the principles of 1793.
Since 1830 this man has been a receiver-general. He relied for his
advancement on his relations with the Duc d'Orleans, father of Louis
Philippe, and with Monsieur de Folmon, formerly steward to the
Duchess-dowager of Orleans. He receives about eighty thousand francs a
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