| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Ball at Sceaux by Honore de Balzac: doubt, but wealthy, and whom he created Baron. When, the year after,
the Vendeen spoke of Mademoiselle Emilie de Fontaine, the King replied
in his thin sharp tones, "Amicus Plato sed magis amica Natio." Then, a
few days later, he treated his "friend Fontaine" to a quatrain,
harmless enough, which he styled an epigram, in which he made fun of
these three daughters so skilfully introduced, under the form of a
trinity. Nay, if report is to be believed, the monarch had found the
point of the jest in the Unity of the three Divine Persons.
"If your Majesty would only condescend to turn the epigram into an
epithalamium?" said the Count, trying to turn the sally to good
account.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Hellenica by Xenophon: a court of justice. Such was the position of affairs in connection
with the Phliasian exiles at the date in question.
B.C. 383.[13] And now from yet another quarter ambassadors arrived at
Lacedaemon: that is to say, from Acanthus and Apollonia, the two
largest and most important states of the Olynthian confederacy. The
ephorate, after learning from them the object of their visit,
presented them to the assembly and the allies, in presence of whom
Cleigenes of Acanthus made a speech to this effect:
[13] Al. B.C. 382.
"Men of Lacedaemon and of the allied states," he said, "are you aware
of a silent but portentous growth within the bosom of Hellas?[14] Few
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Middlemarch by George Eliot: gentleman disliked coarseness and profanity, and merely bowed.
The remark was taken up by Mr. Chichely, a middle-aged bachelor
and coursing celebrity, who had a complexion something like
an Easter egg, a few hairs carefully arranged, and a carriage
implying the consciousness of a distinguished appearance.
"Yes, but not my style of woman: I like a woman who lays herself
out a little more to please us. There should be a little filigree
about a woman--something of the coquette. A man likes a sort
of challenge. The more of a dead set she makes at you the better."
"There's some truth in that," said Mr. Standish, disposed to be genial.
"And, by God, it's usually the way with them. I suppose it answers
Middlemarch |
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 A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: following epistle:--
"Set off by the next mail; and if you can get here soon enough,
your fortune is made. Mademoiselle Angelique Bontems has lost her
sister; she is now an only child; and, as we know, she does not
hate you. Madame Bontems can now leave her about forty thousand
francs a year, besides whatever she may give her when she marries.
I have prepared the way.
"Our friends will wonder to see a family of old nobility allying
itself to the Bontems; old Bontems was a red republican of the
deepest dye, owning large quantities of the nationalized land,
that he bought for a mere song. But he held nothing but convent
|
