| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: nature, let us lay a trap for the Public Prosecutor; we shall be doing
our friend Gatien a service, and get a laugh out of it. I do not love
Public Prosecutors."
"You have a keen intuition of destiny," said Horace. "But what can we
do?"
"Well, after dinner we will tell sundry little anecdotes of wives
caught out by their husbands, killed, murdered under the most terrible
circumstances.--Then we shall see the faces that Madame de la Baudraye
and de Clagny will make."
"Not amiss!" said Bianchon; "one or the other must surely, by look or
gesture--"
The Muse of the Department |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Lesser Bourgeoisie by Honore de Balzac: An obscure organ was about to expire in its native shade when an
ambitious person of recent date bethought himself of galvanizing
it. His object was to make it a foothold by which to climb from
municipal functions to the coveted position of deputy. Happily
this object, having come to the surface, will end in failure.
Electors will certainly not be inveigled by so wily a manner of
advancing self-interests; and when the proper time arrives, if
ridicule has not already done justice on this absurd candidacy, we
shall ourselves prove to the pretender that to aspire to the
distinguished honor of representing the nation something more is
required than the money to buy a paper and pay an underling to put
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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 Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: that big fire-eater asks his advice."
Marechal was the lawyer whom his former patron, when buying Les Aigues
for the general, had recommended to Monsieur de Montcornet as legal
adviser.
Sibilet, eldest son of the clerk of the court at Ville-aux-Fayes, a
notary's clerk, without a penny of his own, and twenty-five years old,
had fallen in love with the daughter of the chief-magistrate of
Soulanges. The latter, named Sarcus, had a salary of fifteen hundred
francs, and was married to a woman without fortune, the eldest sister
of Monsieur Vermut, the apothecary of Soulanges. Though an only
daughter, Mademoiselle Sarcus, whose beauty was her only dowry, could
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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 The Turn of the Screw by Henry James: They've only to keep to their suggestions of danger."
"For the children to come?"
"And perish in the attempt!" Mrs. Grose slowly got up,
and I scrupulously added: "Unless, of course, we can prevent!"
Standing there before me while I kept my seat, she visibly
turned things over. "Their uncle must do the preventing.
He must take them away."
"And who's to make him?"
She had been scanning the distance, but she now dropped on me
a foolish face. "You, miss."
"By writing to him that his house is poisoned and his little
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