| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Episode Under the Terror by Honore de Balzac: brow on the way to his martyrdom," murmured he. " . . . Poor man!
. . . There was a heart in the steel blade, when none was found in all
France . . . "
The perfumers thought that the poor abbe was raving.
PARIS, January 183l.
ADDENDUM
The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
Beauseant, Marquis and Comte de
Father Goriot
Ragon, M. and Mme.
Cesar Birotteau
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Ball at Sceaux by Honore de Balzac: private code, an accomplished gentleman.
"Have you any debts?" he at last asked of his companion, after many
other inquiries.
"No, monsieur."
"What, you pay for all you have?"
"Punctually; otherwise we should lose our credit, and every sort of
respect."
"But at least you have more than one mistress? Ah, you blush, comrade!
Well, manners have changed. All these notions of lawful order,
Kantism, and liberty have spoilt the young men. You have no Guimard
now, no Duthe, no creditors--and you know nothing of heraldry; why, my
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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 Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson: console, and prosper them.
Our guard is relieved, the service of the day is over, and the hour
come to rest. We resign into thy hands our sleeping bodies, our
cold hearths, and open doors. Give us to awake with smiles, give
us to labour smiling. As the sun returns in the east, so let our
patience be renewed with dawn; as the sun lightens the world, so
let our loving-kindness make bright this house of our habitation.
ANOTHER FOR EVENING
LORD, receive our supplications for this house, family, and
country. Protect the innocent, restrain the greedy and the
treacherous, lead us out of our tribulation into a quiet land.
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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 Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: the exportation of papyrus; and the Pergamenian books are henceforth
transcribed on parchment, parchemin, Pergamene, which thus has its name
to this day, from Pergamus. That collection, too, found its way at last
to Alexandria. For Antony having become possessor of it by right of the
stronger, gave it to Cleopatra; and it remained at Alexandria for seven
hundred years. But we must not anticipate events.
Then there must be besides a Mouseion, a Temple of the Muses, with all
due appliances, in a vast building adjoining the palace itself, under
the very wing of royalty; and it must have porticos, wherein sages may
converse; lecture-rooms, where they may display themselves at their will
to their rapt scholars, each like a turkey-cock before his brood; and a
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