| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: numbed, and roasted, and torn by false hopes. We must go, on the faith
of a mere indication, to a vague object, miss our end, curse our luck,
improvise to ourselves elegies, dithyrambics, exclaim idiotically
before inoffensive pedestrians who observe us, knock over old apple-
women and their baskets, run hither and thither, stand on guard
beneath a window, make a thousand suppositions. But, after all, it is
a chase, a hunt; a hunt in Paris, a hunt with all its chances, minus
dogs and guns and the tally-ho! Nothing compares with it but the life
of gamblers. But it needs a heart big with love and vengeance to
ambush itself in Paris, like a tiger waiting to spring upon its prey,
and to enjoy the chances and contingencies of Paris, by adding one
Ferragus |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: just in the middle above the stay-busk, and in the daintiest little
hollow! It was enough to make every man under thirty drop his eyelids.
"I am as sweet as a sugar-plum," said she to herself, going through
her attitudes before the glass, exactly as a dancer practises her
curtesies.
Lisbeth had been to market, and the dinner was to be one of those
superfine meals which Mathurine had been wont to cook for her Bishop
when he entertained the prelate of the adjoining diocese.
Stidmann, Claude Vignon, and Count Steinbock arrived almost together,
just at six. An ordinary, or, if you will, a natural woman would have
hastened at the announcement of a name so eagerly longed for; but
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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 Hermione's Little Group of Serious Thinkers by Don Marquis: you know -- and it's wonderful, just sim-
ply WONDERFUL!
Though Mamma -- poor der Mamma is so hope-
lessly old fashioned; -- has entirely the wrong idea
about it.
"Hermione," she said to me the other evening,
after the little talk, "WHAT did the lecturer call
himself?"
"He's a Hedonist," I said.
"Indeed!" she said, "and what sort of modern
impropriety is Hedonism? Is it something about
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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 A Hero of Our Time by M.Y. Lermontov: path.
"On that day the dumb will cry out and the
blind will see," I said to myself, following him
just close enough to keep him in sight.
Meanwhile the moon was becoming overcast
by clouds and a mist had risen upon the sea. The
lantern alight in the stern of a ship close at hand
was scarcely visible through the mist, and by
the shore there glimmered the foam of the waves,
which every moment threatened to submerge it.
Descending with difficulty, I stole along the
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