| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: that lady for not admitting him--the Abbe Troubert, twice proposed by
the bishop as vicar-general!--to her house.
It would be impossible to find two figures which presented so many
contrasts to each other as those of the two abbes. Troubert, tall and
lean, was yellow and bilious, while the vicar was what we call,
familiarly, plump. Birotteau's face, round and ruddy, proclaimed a
kindly nature barren of ideas, while that of the Abbe Troubert, long
and ploughed by many wrinkles, took on at times an expression of
sarcasm, or else of contempt; but it was necessary to watch him very
closely before those sentiments could be detected. The canon's
habitual condition was perfect calmness, and his eyelids were usually
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac: hearse. And now, Don Carlos Herrera, you and I will fight it out!"
"Carlos?" said Contenson, "he is in Spain."
"He is in Paris," said Corentin positively. "There is a touch of
Spanish genius of the Philip II. type in all this; but I have pitfalls
for everybody, even for kings."
Five days after the nabob's disappearance, Madame du Val-Noble was
sitting by Esther's bedside weeping, for she felt herself on one of
the slopes down to poverty.
"If I only had at least a hundred louis a year! With that sum, my
dear, a woman can retire to some little town and find a husband----"
"I can get you as much as that," said Esther.
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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 Night and Day by Virginia Woolf: wondered what he was looking for; were there waves beating upon a
shore for him, too, she wondered, and heroes riding through the
leaf-hung forests? For perhaps the first time in her life she thought
of him as a man, young, unhappy, tempestuous, full of desires and
faults; for the first time she realized him for herself, and not from
her mother's memory. He might have been her brother, she thought. It
seemed to her that they were akin, with the mysterious kinship of
blood which makes it seem possible to interpret the sights which the
eyes of the dead behold so intently, or even to believe that they look
with us upon our present joys and sorrows. He would have understood,
she thought, suddenly; and instead of laying her withered flowers upon
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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 Anthem by Ayn Rand: to the hall and to beat of our heart.
"Yes," said Collective 0-0009, "we have
much to say to a wretch who have broken
all the laws and who boast of their infamy!
How dared you think that your mind held
greater wisdom than the minds of your
brothers? And if the Councils had decreed
that you should be a Street Sweeper,
how dared you think that you could be of
greater use to men than in sweeping the streets?"
"How dared you, gutter cleaner," spoke
Anthem |
