| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from An Episode Under the Terror by Honore de Balzac: of January, one does not feel sorry to see the ghastly procession."
"Why not?" asked the abbe. "That is not said like a Christian."
"Eh! but it is the execution of Robespierre's accomplices. They
defended themselves as long as they could, but now it is their turn to
go where they sent so many innocent people."
The crowd poured by like a flood. The abbe, yielding to an impulse of
curiosity, looked up above the heads, and there in the tumbril stood
the man who had heard mass in the garret three days ago.
"Who is it?" he asked; "who is the man with----"
"That is the headsman," answered M. Ragon, calling the executioner--
the executeur des hautes oeuvres--by the name he had borne under the
|
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 Mosses From An Old Manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne: against the chimney, and at the same instant sank upon the floor,
a medley of straw and tattered garments, with some sticks
protruding from the heap, and a shrivelled pumpkin in the midst.
The eyeholes were now lustreless; but the rudely-carved gap, that
just before had been a mouth still seemed to twist itself into a
despairing grin, and was so far human.
"Poor fellow!" quoth Mother Rigby, with a rueful glance at the
relics of her ill-fated contrivance. "My poor, dear, pretty
Feathertop! There are thousands upon thousands of coxcombs and
charlatans in the world, made up of just such a jumble of
wornout, forgotten, and good-for-nothing trash as he was! Yet
Mosses From An Old Manse |
