| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: and began with delight to count over the forgotten items of her little
hoard. First she took out twenty /portugaises/, still new, struck in
the reign of John V., 1725, worth by exchange, as her father told her,
five /lisbonnines/, or a hundred and sixty-eight francs, sixty-four
centimes each; their conventional value, however, was a hundred and
eighty francs apiece, on account of the rarity and beauty of the
coins, which shone like little suns. Item, five /genovines/, or five
hundred-franc pieces of Genoa; another very rare coin worth eighty-
seven francs on exchange, but a hundred francs to collectors. These
had formerly belonged to old Monsieur de la Bertelliere. Item, three
gold /quadruples/, Spanish, of Philip V., struck in 1729, given to her
Eugenie Grandet |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: carry your impudence so far as to speak so of a woman before she has
become mine. . . . Turn your thoughts to dressing me, I am going out."
Henri remained for a moment plunged in joyous reflections. Let us say
it to the praise of women, he obtained all those whom he deigned to
desire. And what could one think of a woman, having no lover, who
should have known how to resist a young man armed with beauty which is
the intelligence of the body, with intelligence which is a grace of
the soul, armed with moral force and fortune, which are the only two
real powers? Yet, in triumphing with such ease, De Marsay was bound to
grow weary of his triumphs; thus, for about two years he had grown
very weary indeed. And diving deep into the sea of pleasures he
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: sadness and sweetness to the picture offered by this window, in which
the two figures were appropriately framed.
The most selfish soul who chanced to see this domestic scene would
carry away with him a perfect image of the life led in Paris by the
working class of women, for the embroideress evidently lived by her
needle. Many, as they passed through the turnstile, found themselves
wondering how a girl could preserve her color, living in such a
cellar. A student of lively imagination, going that way to cross to
the Quartier-Latin, would compare this obscure and vegetative life to
that of the ivy that clung to these chill walls, to that of the
peasants born to labor, who are born, toil, and die unknown to the
|
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 Statesman by Plato: STRANGER: Of course that which exercises command about animals. For,
surely, the royal science is not like that of a master-workman, a science
presiding over lifeless objects;--the king has a nobler function, which is
the management and control of living beings.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: And the breeding and tending of living beings may be observed to
be sometimes a tending of the individual; in other cases, a common care of
creatures in flocks?
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: But the statesman is not a tender of individuals--not like the
driver or groom of a single ox or horse; he is rather to be compared with
Statesman |
