| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan by Honore de Balzac: might have ruined other women, in spite of Diane's surroundings, and
the influence of her mother and that of the Duc de Navarreins, her
father-in-law, and her husband's aunt.
For several ensuing days the princess revealed herself to d'Arthez as
remarkable for her knowledge of literature. She discussed with perfect
fearlessness the most difficult questions, thanks to her daily and
nightly reading, pursued with an intrepidity worthy of the highest
praise. D'Arthez, amazed, and incapable of suspecting that Diane
d'Uxelles merely repeated at night that which she read in the morning
(as some writers do), regarded her as a most superior woman. These
conversations, however, led away from Diane's object, and she tried to
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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 Outlaw of Torn by Edgar Rice Burroughs: a nicety must be thy handling of the weapon that thou
mayst touch an antagonist at will and so lightly,
shouldst thou desire, that thy point, wholly under the
control of a master hand, mayst be stopped before it
inflicts so much as a scratch."
But in practice there were many accidents, and
then one or both of them would nurse a punctured
skin for a few days. So, while blood was often let on
both sides, the training produced a fearless swordsman
who was so truly the master of his point that he could
stop a thrust within a fraction of an inch of the spot he
The Outlaw of Torn |
