| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas: thirty blades glittered about their heads.
Suddenly a man sprang out of the English ranks, fell upon
Athos, twined arms of steel around him, and tearing his
sword from him, said in his ear:
"Silence! yield -- you yield to me, do you not?"
A giant had seized also Aramis's two wrists, who struggled
in vain to release himself from this formidable grasp.
"D'Art ---- " exclaimed Athos, whilst the Gascon covered his
mouth with his hand.
"I am your prisoner," said Aramis, giving up his sword to
Porthos.
Twenty Years After |
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 Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: Rovere would have been capable of denying his own infallibility
and of commenting on the Apocalypse.
Nevertheless, this legend has not been undertaken to furnish
materials for future biographies of Don Juan; it is intended to
prove to honest folk that Belvidero did not die in a duel with
stone, as some lithographers would have us believe.
When Don Juan Belvidero reached the age of sixty he settled in
Spain, and there in his old age he married a young and charming
Andalusian wife. But of set purpose he was neither a good husband
nor a good father. He had observed that we are never so tenderly
loved as by women to whom we scarcely give a thought. Dona Elvira
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