| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: failed him; too weak already to sustain so vast an enterprise, he felt
himself incapable of attempting to build it up again; he was fated to
perish in its ashes. Love for the countess gave him still a few
thrills of life; his mask brightened for a moment, but behind it hope
was dead. He did not suspect the hand of du Tillet, and laid the blame
of his misfortune on the usurer. Rastignac, Blondet, Lousteau, Vernou,
Finot, and Massol took care not to enlighten him. Rastignac, who
wanted to return to power, made common cause with Nucingen and du
Tillet. The others felt a satisfaction in the catastrophe of an equal
who had attempted to make himself their master. None of them, however,
would have said a word to Florine; on the contrary, they praised Raoul
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Confidence by Henry James: I do believe we have seen every old ruin in the whole country.
Mrs. Vivian and Angela are so awfully fond of scenery--they talk
about it by the half-hour. They talk about the mountains and trees
as if they were people they knew--as if they were gentlemen!
I mean as if the mountains and trees were gentlemen.
Of course scenery 's lovely, but you can't walk about with a tree.
At any rate, that has been all our society--foliage!
Foliage and women; but I suppose women are a sort of foliage.
They are always rustling about and dropping off. That 's why I
could n't make up my mind to go out with them this afternoon.
They 've gone to see the Waterworths--the Waterworths arrived
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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 Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas: Mazarin, but the queen, and say to her, `Madame, restore to
us your two servants and our two friends.'"
Aramis shook his head.
"'Tis a last resource, but let us not employ it till it is
imperatively called for; let us rather persevere in our
researches."
They continued their inquiries and at last met with a light
dragoon who had formed one of the guard which had escorted
D'Artagnan to Rueil.
Athos, however, perpetually recurred to his proposed
interview with the queen.
Twenty Years After |
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 Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: form, nor follow its windings and evolutions with enough love and
perseverance. Beauty is solemn and severe, and cannot be attained in
that way; we must wait and watch its times and seasons, and clasp it
firmly ere it yields to us. Form is a Proteus less easily captured,
more skilful to double and escape, than the Proteus of fable; it is
only at the cost of struggle that we compel it to come forth in its
true aspects. You young men are content with the first glimpse you get
of it; or, at any rate, with the second or the third. This is not the
spirit of the great warriors of art,--invincible powers, not misled by
will-o'-the-wisps, but advancing always until they force Nature to lie
bare in her divine integrity. That was Raphael's method," said the old
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