| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Kenilworth by Walter Scott: I will whet my dagger on his heart-spone that refuses to pledge
me! And so, my masters--"
Thus speaking, Lambourne exhausted the cup which the astrologer
had handed to him, and which contained not wine, but distilled
spirits. He swore half an oath, dropped the empty cup from his
grasp, laid his hand on his sword without being able to draw it,
reeled, and fell without sense or motion into the arms of the
domestic, who dragged him off to his chamber, and put him to bed.
In the general confusion, Janet regained her lady's chamber
unobserved, trembling like an aspen leaf, but determined to keep
secret from the Countess the dreadful surmises which she could
Kenilworth |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: mock at a feeling that is wholly respectful, and that is too
deeply graven on my heart ever to be effaced. Break my heart, but
do not rend it! Let the expression of my first love, a pure and
youthful love, be lost in your pure and youthful heart! Let it die
there as a prayer rises up to die in the bosom of God!
"I owe you much gratitude: I have spent delicious hours occupied
in watching you, and giving myself up to the faint dreams of my
life; do not crush these long but transient joys by some girlish
irony. Be satisfied not to answer me. I shall know how to
interpret your silence; you will see me no more. If I must be
condemned to know for ever what happiness means, and to be for
Louis Lambert |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Gambara by Honore de Balzac: an experience familiar to many a man who would not own it?
The most natural feelings are those we are least willing to confess,
and among them is fatuity. When the lesson is carried no further, the
Parisian profits by it, or forgets it, and no great harm is done. But
this would hardly be the case with this foreigner, who was beginning
to think he might pay too dearly for his Paris education.
This personage was a Milanese of good family, exiled from his native
country, where some "liberal" pranks had made him an object of
suspicion to the Austrian Government. Count Andrea Marcosini had been
welcomed in Paris with the cordiality, essentially French, that a man
always finds there, when he has a pleasant wit, a sounding name, two
Gambara |
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 Odyssey by Homer: wayside, with one of my companions. And dark midnight held
the heavens, and no man marked us, but privily I took his
life away. Now after I had slain him with the sharp spear,
straightway I went to a ship and besought the lordly
Phoenicians, and gave them spoil to their hearts' desire. I
charged them to take me on board, and land me at Pylos or
at goodly Elis where the Epeans bear rule. Howbeit of a
truth, the might of the wind drave them out of their
course, sore against their will, nor did they wilfully play
me false. Thence we were driven wandering, and came hither
by night. And with much ado we rowed onward into harbour,
The Odyssey |
