| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: be Prince of Varese!"
My head was swimming. For me his confidences reached the proportions
of tragedy; at the sight of that white head of his and beyond it the
black water in the trenches of the Bastille lying still as a canal in
Venice, I had no words to answer him. Facino Cane thought, no doubt,
that I judged him, as the rest had done, with a disdainful pity; his
gesture expressed the whole philosophy of despair.
Perhaps his story had taken him back to happy days and to Venice. He
caught up his clarionet and made plaintive music, playing a Venetian
boat-song with something of his lost skill, the skill of the young
patrician lover. It was a sort of /Super flumina Babylonis/. Tears
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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 Study of a Woman by Honore de Balzac: introduced me into the sanctuary."
"Monsieur de Listomere is not in my confidence on this point. It is
not always prudent to put a husband in possession of certain secrets."
The firm and gentle tones in which the marquise said these words, and
the imposing glance which she cast upon Rastignac made him aware that
he had posed in his cravat a trifle prematurely.
"Madame, I understand you," he said, laughing. "I ought, therefore, to
be doubly thankful that Monsieur le marquis met me; he affords me an
opportunity to offer you excuses which might be full of danger were
you not kindness itself."
The marquise looked at the young man with an air of some surprise, but
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