| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Exiles by Honore de Balzac: to tower all over the city. Then suddenly confused shouts were heard
on the left bank of the Seine, behind Notre-Dame, in the quarter where
the schools of the University harbored their swarms.
At this signal, Jacqueline's elder lodger began to move about his
room. The sergeant, his wife, and the strange lady listened while he
opened and shut his door, and the old man's heavy step was heard on
the steep stair. The constable's suspicions gave such interest to the
advent of this personage, that the lady was startled as she observed
the strange expression of the two countenances before her. Referring
the terrors of this couple to the youth she was protecting--as was
natural in a lover--the young lady awaited, with some uneasiness, the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: An Attache to an embassy: "Madame Firmiani? Isn't she from Antwerp? I
saw her ten years ago in Rome; she was very handsome then."
Individuals of the species Attache have a mania for talking in the
style of Talleyrand. Their wit is often so refined that the point is
imperceptible; they are like billiard-players who avoid hitting the
ball with consummate dexterity. These individuals are usually
taciturn, and when they talk it is only about Spain, Vienna, Italy, or
Petersburg. Names of countries act like springs in their mind; press
them, and the ringing of their changes begins.
"That Madame Firmiani sees a great deal of the faubourg Saint-Germain,
doesn't she?" This from a person who desires to belong to the class
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Gentle Grafter by O. Henry: price, of a meal. And so, there was the three of us, representing, if
we had a mind to draw syllogisms and parabolas, labor and trade and
capital. Now, when trade has no capital there isn't a dicker to be
made. And when capital has no money there's a stagnation in steak and
onions. That put it up to the man with the jimmy.
"'Brother bushrangers,' says Bill Bassett, 'never yet, in trouble, did
I desert a pal. Hard by, in yon wood, I seem to see unfurnished
lodgings. Let us go there and wait till dark.'
"There was an old, deserted cabin in the grove, and we three took
possession of it. After dark Bill Bassett tells us to wait, and goes
out for half an hour. He comes back with a armful of bread and
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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 The Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabre: forward striving. She is at last brought back to the branch by the
falling threads. Here, the ascent is soon renewed, either on a
fresh thread, if the supply of silk be not yet exhausted, or on a
strange thread, the work, of those who have gone before.
As a rule, the ceiling is reached. It is twelve feet high. The
little Spider is able, therefore, as the first product of her
spinning-mill, before taking any refreshment, to obtain a line
fully twelve feet in length. And all this, the rope-maker and her
rope, was contained in the egg, a particle of no size at all. To
what a degree of fineness can the silky matter be wrought wherewith
the young Spider is provided! Our manufacturers are able to turn
The Life of the Spider |
