| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Hated Son by Honore de Balzac: cradle beside her bed. In the absence of the count she ventured to
send for the bonesetter, whose name she had caught and remembered. To
her, Beauvouloir was a being to whom she owed an untold debt of
gratitude; and she desired of all things to question him on certain
points relating to her son. If an attempt were made to poison him, how
should she foil it? In what way ought she to manage his frail
constitution? Was it well to nurse him long? If she died, would
Beauvouloir undertake the care of the poor child's health?
To the questions of the countess, Beauvouloir, deeply touched, replied
that he feared, as much as she did, an attempt to poison Etienne; but
there was, he assured her, no danger as long as she nursed the child;
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Hiero by Xenophon: a hungry man; "Od." xvii. 603.
It looks very much (interposed Simonides) as if the sole pleasure left
you to explain the vulgar ambition to wear a crown, must be that named
after Aphrodite. For in this field it is your privilege to consort
with whatever fairest fair your eyes may light on.
Hiero. Nay, now you have named that one thing of all others, take my
word for it, in which we princes are worse off than lesser people.[32]
[32] Reading {saph' isthi}, or if as Cobet conj. {saphestata}, transl.
"are at a disadvantage most clearly by comparison with ordinary
folk."
To name marriage first. I presume a marriage[33] which is contracted
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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 The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson: "It is well, then that we should be frank," said the other.
"We both think more than we have said; let us make a clean breast.
This masked figure that you saw, did you recognise it?"
"Well, sir, it went so quick, and the creature was so doubled
up, that I could hardly swear to that," was the answer. "But if
you mean, was it Mr. Hyde?--why, yes, I think it was!" You see,
it was much of the same bigness; and it had the same quick, light
way with it; and then who else could have got in by the laboratory
door? You have not forgot, sir, that at the time of the murder he
had still the key with him? But that's not all. I don't know,
Mr. Utterson, if you ever met this Mr. Hyde?"
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde |
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 Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: happiness depend upon their favor. A maiden inexperienced in love and
easily moved by words may allow herself to be seduced; but in dealing
with women of this sort, a man must be able, like M. de Jaucourt, to
refrain from crying out when, in hiding him in a closet, the lady's
maid crushes two of his fingers in the crack of a door. To love one of
these omnipotent sirens is to stake one's life, is it not? And that,
perhaps, is why we love them so passionately! Such was the Comtesse de
Lanty.
Filippo, Marianina's brother, inherited, as did his sister, the
Countess' marvelous beauty. To tell the whole story in a word, that
young man was a living image of Antinous, with somewhat slighter
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