| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne: moving a limb; and yet he did his work cleverly. My uncle made more
noise than execution, and the guide seemed to pay very little
attention to his energetic directions.
At six o'clock our preparations were over. M. Fridrikssen shook hands
with us. My uncle thanked him heartily for his extreme kindness. I
constructed a few fine Latin sentences to express my cordial
farewell. Then we bestrode our steeds and with his last adieu M.
Fridrikssen treated me to a line of Virgil eminently applicable to
such uncertain wanderers as we were likely to be:
"Et quacumque viam dedent fortuna sequamur."
"Therever fortune clears a way,
 Journey to the Center of the Earth |
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 Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac: accepting the duty thus put upon him, "I must first tell you that you
are not a legitimate Sallenauve. When Monsieur le marquis, here
present, returned after the emigration, in the year 1808, he made the
acquaintance of your mother, and in 1809 you were born as the fruit of
their intercourse. Your birth, as you already know, cost your mother
her life, and as misfortunes never come singly, Monsieur de Sallenauve
was compromised in a conspiracy against the imperial power and
compelled to fly the country. Brought up in Arcis with me, the
marquis, wishing to give me a proof of his friendship, confided to me,
on his departure to this new expatriation, the care of your childhood.
I accepted that charge, I will not say with alacrity, but certainly
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