| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: blossom vainly sheds its fragrance to the solitude, so do I, here
in the garret, give birth to ideas that no one can grasp.
"Yesterday evening I sat eating bread and grapes in front of my
window with a young doctor named Meyraux. We talked as men do whom
misfortune has joined in brotherhood, and I said to him:
" 'I am going away; you are staying. Take up my ideas and develop
them.'
" 'I cannot!' said he, with bitter regret: 'my feeble health
cannot stand so much work, and I shall die young of my struggle
with penury.'
"We looked up at the sky and grasped hands. We first met at the
Louis Lambert |
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 Two Brothers by Honore de Balzac: The doctor had seen, too late for remedy, the havoc wrought in his
son's life by a temperament and a character of this kind. He would
have been glad to get him married; but to do that, he must deliver him
over to an influence that was certain to become tyrannical, and the
doctor hesitated. Was it not practically giving the whole management
of the property into the hands of a stranger, some unknown girl? The
doctor knew how difficult it was to gain true indications of the moral
character of a woman from any study of a young girl. So, while he
continued to search for a daughter-in-law whose sentiments and
education offered some guarantees for the future, he endeavored to
push his son into the ways of avarice; meaning to give the poor fool a
|
