| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Eve and David by Honore de Balzac: "They are giving a dinner to your brother-in-law, Lucien----"
"I know that he would feel sorry to miss me there," he said.
At midnight Petit-Claud walked home with Lucien. As they reached the
Place du Murier, Lucien said, "Come life, come death, we are friends,
my dear fellow."
"My marriage contract," said the lawyer, "with Mlle. Francoise de la
Haye will be signed to-morrow at Mme. de Senonches' house; do me the
pleasure of coming. Mme. de Senonches implored me to bring you, and
you will meet Mme. du Chatelet; they are sure to tell her of your
speech, and she will feel flattered by it."
"I knew what I was about," said Lucien.
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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 Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: paid the penalty with their lives. God is now Love, and a director of
the census performs his work without apprehension of disaster.
X
X in our alphabet being a needless letter has an added invincibility
to the attacks of the spelling reformers, and like them, will
doubtless last as long as the language. X is the sacred symbol of ten
dollars, and in such words as Xmas, Xn, etc., stands for Christ, not,
as is popular supposed, because it represents a cross, but because the
corresponding letter in the Greek alphabet is the initial of his name
-- _Xristos_. If it represented a cross it would stand for St.
Andrew, who "testified" upon one of that shape. In the algebra of
The Devil's Dictionary |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from In Darkest England and The Way Out by General William Booth: my unfortunate fellow-prisoners, whom I had seen daily, but the sound
of whose voices I had never heard, whilst outside friendships were
dead, and companionships were for ever broken, and I felt as an outcast
of society, with the mark of 'gaol bird' upon me, that I must cover my
face, and stand aside and cry 'unclean.' Such were my feelings.
"The morning of discharge came, and I am once more on the streets.
My scanty means scarcely sufficient for two days' least needs. Could I
brace myself to make another honest endeavour to start afresh?
Try, indeed, I did. I fell back upon my antecedents, and tried to cut
the dark passage out of my life, but straight came the questions to me
at each application for employment, 'What have you been doing lately?'
In Darkest England and The Way Out |
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 The New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: cycle of nature, like the onset of spring--a sharp brightness, an
uneasiness. She became restless with her work; little encounters
with men began to happen, encounters not quite in the quality of the
earlier proposals; and then came an odd incident of which she told
me, but somehow, I felt, didn't tell me completely. She told me all
she was able to tell me. She had been at a dance at the Ropers',
and a man, rather well known in London, had kissed her. The thing
amazed her beyond measure. It was the sort of thing immediately
possible between any man and any woman, that one never expects to
happen until it happens. It had the surprising effect of a judge
generally known to be bald suddenly whipping off his wig in court.
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