| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Hated Son by Honore de Balzac: Beauvouloir had intentionally made no preparations; he thought,
wisely, that between two beings in whom solitude had left pure hearts,
love would arise in all its simplicity. The repetition of the air by
Gabrielle was a ready text on which to begin a conversation.
During this promenade Etienne was conscious of that bodily buoyancy
which all men have felt at the moment when a first love transports
their vital principle into another being. He offered to teach
Gabrielle to sing. The poor lad was so glad to show himself to this
young girl invested with some slight superiority that he trembled with
pleasure when she accepted his offer. At that moment the moonlight
fell full upon her, and enabled Etienne to note the points of her
|
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 American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: Georgia's modern chivalry, and all the weary, weary rest of it.
The Southern chivalry howled, and hanged or burned some one in
effigy. Perhaps it was the President, and perhaps it was the
negro--but the principle remains the same. They said it was an
insult. It is not good to be a negro in the land of the free and
the home of the brave.
But this is nothing to do with San Francisco and her merry
maidens, her strong, swaggering men, and her wealth of gold and
pride. They bore me to a banquet in honor of a brave
lieutenant--Carlin, of the "Vandalia"--who stuck by his ship in
the great cyclone at Apia and comported himself as an officer
|
