| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: those hearts devoted to narrow duties and entrenched behind pious
practices. Silent games of cards occupied the whole evening, and the
two young girls under the ban of that Sanhedrim enforced by maternal
severity, came to hate the dispiriting personages about them with
their hollow eyes and scowling faces.
On the gloom of this life one sole figure of a man, that of a music-
master, stood vigorously forth. The confessors had decided that music
was a Christian art, born of the Catholic Church and developed within
her. The two Maries were therefore permitted to study music. A
spinster in spectacles, who taught singing and the piano in a
neighboring convent, wearied them with exercises; but when the eldest
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Georgics by Virgil: No easy road to husbandry assigned,
And first was he by human skill to rouse
The slumbering glebe, whetting the minds of men
With care on care, nor suffering realm of his
In drowsy sloth to stagnate. Before Jove
Fields knew no taming hand of husbandmen;
To mark the plain or mete with boundary-line-
Even this was impious; for the common stock
They gathered, and the earth of her own will
All things more freely, no man bidding, bore.
He to black serpents gave their venom-bane,
Georgics |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Purse by Honore de Balzac: refinement and good taste. Their noble and simple manners at
first made no great impression on the painter, but subsequently,
as he recalled all the details of the incident, he was greatly
struck by them.
When they reached the floor beneath that occupied by the
painter's studio, the old lady gently observed, "Adelaide, you
left the door open."
"That was to come to my assistance," said the painter, with a
grateful smile.
"You came down just now, mother," replied the young girl, with a
blush.
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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 Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac: under suspicion know nothing of what is being said by the seven or
eight publics that compose THE PUBLIC, nothing of how much the police
know, or the authorities, or the little that newspapers can publish as
to the circumstances of the crime.
Thus, to give a man in custody such information as Jacques Collin had
just received from Asie as to Lucien's arrest, is throwing a rope to a
drowning man. As will be seen, in consequence of this ignorance, a
stratagem which, without this warning, must certainly have been
equally fatal to the convict, was doomed to failure.
Monsieur Camusot, the son-in-law of one of the clerks of the cabinet,
too well known for any account of his position and connection to be
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