| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: that intrigue was of brief duration. Sarrasine was decidedly ugly,
always badly dressed, and naturally so independent, so irregular in
his private life, that the illustrious nymph, dreading some
catastrophe, soon remitted the sculptor to love of the arts. Sophie
Arnould made some witty remark on the subject. She was surprised, I
think, that her colleague was able to triumph over statues.
"Sarrasine started for Italy in 1758. On the journey his ardent
imagination took fire beneath a sky of copper and at the sight of the
marvelous monuments with which the fatherland of the arts is strewn.
He admired the statues, the frescoes, the pictures; and, fired with a
spirit of emulation, he went on to Rome, burning to inscribe his name
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Prince of Bohemia by Honore de Balzac: " 'One moment, my dear fellow,' interrupted La Palferine. 'There are
the Trigaudins. Are you one of them?'
"Astonishment.
" 'No? Then you are one of the new dukes of Gaeta, I suppose, of
imperial creation? No? Oh, well, how can you expect my friend to cross
swords with you when he will be secretary of an embassy and ambassador
/some day/, and you will owe him respect? /Godin!/ the thing is non-
existent! You are a nonentity, Godin. My friend cannot be expected to
beat the air! When one is somebody, one cannot fight with a nobody!
Come, my dear fellow--good-day.'
" 'My respects to madame,' added the friend.
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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 Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: The brow of the upland overtops the square
tower of the Colebrook Church. The slope is
green and looped by a white road. Ascending
along this road, you open a valley broad and shal-
low, a wide green trough of pastures and hedges
merging inland into a vista of purple tints and
flowing lines closing the view.
In this valley down to Brenzett and Colebrook
and up to Darnford, the market town fourteen
miles away, lies the practice of my friend Kennedy.
He had begun life as surgeon in the Navy, and
Amy Foster |
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 Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: morrow morning and be shot in twenty-four hours."
That evening I stopped short under the window of the prison during the
short time I was allowed to take exercise in the prison yard. We
talked together, and he frankly related to me his strange affair,
replying with evident truthfulness to my various questions. After that
first conversation I no longer doubted his innocence; I asked, and
obtained the favor of staying several hours with him. I saw him again
at intervals, and the poor lad let me in without concealment to all
his thoughts. He believed himself both innocent and guilty.
Remembering the horrible temptation which he had had the strength to
resist, he feared he might have done in sleep, in a fit of
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