| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: pay the expenses of my medical training; I had not a friend; my
irascible, touchy, restless temper was against me. No one
understood that this irritability was the distress and toil of a
man who, at the bottom of the social scale, is struggling to
reach the surface. Still, I had, as I may say to you, before whom
I need wear no draperies, I had that ground-bed of good feeling
and keen sensitiveness which must always be the birthright of any
man who is strong enough to climb to any height whatever, after
having long trampled in the bogs of poverty. I could obtain
nothing from my family, nor from my home, beyond my inadequate
allowance. In short, at that time, I breakfasted off a roll which
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: accounts as a creditor for the sum of six thousand francs.
Such conduct and such ideas explain Charles Grandet's silence. In the
Indies, at St. Thomas, on the coast of Africa, at Lisbon, and in the
United States the adventurer had taken the pseudonym of Shepherd, that
he might not compromise his own name. Charles Shepherd could safely be
indefatigable, bold, grasping, and greedy of gain, like a man who
resolves to snatch his fortune /quibus cumque viis/, and makes haste
to have done with villany, that he may spend the rest of his life as
an honest man.
With such methods, prosperity was rapid and brilliant; and in 1827
Charles Grandet returned to Bordeaux on the "Marie Caroline," a fine
Eugenie Grandet |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Fables by Robert Louis Stevenson: the dead leaves."
And the man said, "Upon whom?"
"Here is my nurse," quoth the King's daughter. "She is weary of
the wind. Show me a good marvel upon her."
And, lo! the nurse fell upon the beach as it were two handfuls of
dead leaves, and the wind whirled them widdershins, and the sand
lice hopped between.
"It is true," said the King's daughter of Duntrine, "you are the
comer, and you have power upon the hour. Come with me to my stone
house."
So they went by the sea margin, and the man piped the song of the
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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 Study of a Woman by Honore de Balzac: will add that Eugene was, by this time, writing letters. He was
comfortably seated, with his feet more frequently on the andirons
than, properly, on the rug. Ah! to have one's feet on the polished bar
which connects the two griffins of a fender, and to think of our love
in our dressing-gown is so delightful a thing that I deeply regret the
fact of having neither mistress, nor fender, nor dressing-gown.
The first letter which Eugene wrote was soon finished; he folded and
sealed it, and laid it before him without adding the address. The
second letter, begun at eleven o'clock, was not finished till mid-day.
The four pages were closely filled.
"That woman keeps running in my head," he muttered, as he folded this
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