| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Purse by Honore de Balzac: to honorable causes.
"My dear," said the old lady to the young one, "I am cold; make a
little fire, and give me my shawl."
Adelaide went into a room next the drawing-room, where she no
doubt slept, and returned bringing her mother a cashmere shawl,
which when new must have been very costly; the pattern was
Indian; but it was old, faded and full of darns, and matched the
furniture. Madame Leseigneur wrapped herself in it very
artistically, and with the readiness of an old woman who wishes
to make her words seem truth. The young girl ran lightly off to
the lumber-room and reappeared with a bundle of small wood, which
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: have been an impostor; but in this case it is difficult to
believe that her brothers, Jean and Pierre, and the people of
Lorraine, where she was well known, would not have detected the
imposture at once. And that Jean du Lis, during a familiar
intercourse of at least several months, as indicated in the above
extracts, should have continued to mistake a stranger for his own
sister, with whom he had lived from childhood, seems a very
absurd supposition. Nor is it likely that an impostor would have
exposed herself to such a formidable test. If it had been a bold
charlatan who, taking advantage of the quite general belief, to
which we have ample testimony, that there was something more in
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: lights"--or, in French, jours de souffrance. It was a greenish
structure; the ground floor occupied by a furniture-dealer, while
each floor seemed to shelter a different and independent form of
misery. Throwing up his arm with a vehement gesture, Desplein
exclaimed:
"I lived up there for two years."
"I know; Arthez lived there; I went up there almost every day
during my first youth; we used to call it then the pickle-jar of
great men! What then?"
"The mass I have just attended is connected with some events
which took place at the time when I lived in the garret where you
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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 Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs: mass of verdure, yet ever there appeared to open before this
forest god a passage, as by magic, which closed behind them
as they passed.
Scarce a branch scraped against her, yet above and below,
before and behind, the view presented naught but a solid
mass of inextricably interwoven branches and creepers.
As Tarzan moved steadily onward his mind was occupied
with many strange and new thoughts. Here was a problem
the like of which he had never encountered, and he felt
rather than reasoned that he must meet it as a man and not
as an ape.
Tarzan of the Apes |
