| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: perhaps explain my promise to go to the wedding; I hoped to efface
myself in these poor people's merry-making.
The banquet and the ball were given on a first floor above a wineshop
in the Rue de Charenton. It was a large room, lighted by oil lamps
with tin reflectors. A row of wooden benches ran round the walls,
which were black with grime to the height of the tables. Here some
eighty persons, all in their Sunday best, tricked out with ribbons and
bunches of flowers, all of them on pleasure bent, were dancing away
with heated visages as if the world were about to come to an end.
Bride and bridegroom exchanged salutes to the general satisfaction,
amid a chorus of facetious "Oh, ohs!" and "Ah, ahs!" less really
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: when the door of the humble refuge opened, the Saviour disappeared.
The Convent of Mercy was built for sailors on this spot, where for
long afterwards (so it was said) the footprints of Jesus Christ could
be seen in the sand; but in 1793, at the time of the French invasion,
the monks carried away this precious relic, that bore witness to the
Saviour's last visit to earth.
There at the convent I found myself shortly after the Revolution of
1830. I was weary of life. If you had asked me the reason of my
despair, I should have found it almost impossible to give it, so
languid had grown the soul that was melted within me. The west wind
had slackened the springs of my intelligence. A cold gray light poured
|
