| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: such an event has made me lose the calmness I was beginning to gain
from sea-bathing and our stay in this place.
ADDENDUM
The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
Note: A Drama on the Seashore is also known as A Seaside Tragedy and
is referred to by that title in other addendums.
Cambremer, Pierre
Beatrix
Lambert, Louis
Louis Lambert
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Adieu by Honore de Balzac: him; he was only anxious to reach the chateau, for the change which
had taken place in the colonel's features, in fact in his whole
person, made him fear for his friend's reason. As soon, therefore, as
the carriage had reached the main street of Ile-Adam, he dispatched
the footman to the village doctor, so that the colonel was no sooner
fairly in his bed at the chateau than the physician was beside him.
"If monsieur had not been many hours without food the shock would have
killed him," said the doctor.
After naming the first precautions, the doctor left the room, to
prepare, himself, a calming potion. The next day, Monsieur de Sucy was
better, but the doctor still watched him carefully.
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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 Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: when we were all startled by the interjection of a bid.
"And fifty," said a sharp voice.
Pinkerton, the auctioneer, and the boys, who were all equally in
the open secret of the ring, were now all equally and
simultaneously taken aback.
"I beg your pardon," said the auctioneer. "Anybody bid?"
"And fifty," reiterated the voice, which I was now able to trace
to its origin, on the lips of a small, unseemly rag of human-
kind. The speaker's skin was gray and blotched; he spoke in a
kind of broken song, with much variety of key; his gestures
seemed (as in the disease called Saint Vitus's dance) to be
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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 Enemies of Books by William Blades: appear to have had a precarious existence. The heathens
at each fresh outbreak of persecution burnt all the Christian
writings they could find, and the Christians, when they got
the upper hand, retaliated with interest upon the pagan literature.
The Mohammedan reason for destroying books--"If they contain what is
in the Koran they are superfluous, and if they contain anything
opposed to it they are immoral," seems, indeed, _mutatis mutandis_,
to have been the general rule for all such devastators.
The Invention of Printing made the entire destruction of any author's
works much more difficult, so quickly and so extensively did books
spread through all lands. On the other hand, as books multiplied,
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