| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: uncle was an old dog who had filched his jewels; Eugenie had no place
in his heart nor in his thoughts, though she did have a place in his
accounts as a creditor for the sum of six thousand francs.
Such conduct and such ideas explain Charles Grandet's silence. In the
Indies, at St. Thomas, on the coast of Africa, at Lisbon, and in the
United States the adventurer had taken the pseudonym of Shepherd, that
he might not compromise his own name. Charles Shepherd could safely be
indefatigable, bold, grasping, and greedy of gain, like a man who
resolves to snatch his fortune /quibus cumque viis/, and makes haste
to have done with villany, that he may spend the rest of his life as
an honest man.
Eugenie Grandet |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: clear fire, like those of a wolf crouching in the brushwood as it
hears the baying of the hounds. The uneasy gleam of those eyes was
turned on him so fixedly that, after receiving it for fully a minute,
during which he examined the singular sight, he felt like a bird at
which a setter points; a feverish tumult rose in his soul, but he
quickly repressed it. The two faces, strained and suspicious, were
doubtless those of Cornelius and his sister.
The young man feigned to be looking about him to see where he was, and
whether this were the house named on a card which he drew from his
pocket and pretended to read in the moonlight; then he walked straight
to the door and struck three blows upon it, which echoed within the
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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 Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: in a right line from his lips, seemed to conglobate themselves
into a sphere turning on its own axis in his throat:
after several ineffectual efforts, his utterance totally failed him,
and he remained gasping, with his mouth open, his lips quivering,
his hands clasped together, and the whites of his eyes turned up
towards the prince with an expression most ruefully imploring.
"Are you that friar?" repeated the prince.
Several of the by-standers declared that he was not that friar. The little
friar, encouraged by this patronage, found his voice, and pleaded for mercy.
The prince questioned him closely concerning the burning of the castle.
The little friar declared, that he had been in too great fear during the siege
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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 Bride of Lammermoor by Walter Scott: unpleasing circumstances was feeling that his horse,
notwithstanding all the advantages which he received from his
rider's knowledge of the country, was unable to keep up with the
chase. As he drew his bridle up with the bittle feeling that his
poverty excluded him from the favourite recreation of his
forefathers, and indeed their sole employmet when not engaged in
military pursuits, he was accosted by a well-mounted stranger,
who, unobserved, had kept near him during the earlier part of his
career.
"Your horse is blown," said the man, with a complaisance seldom
used in a hunting-field. "Might I crave your honour to make use
The Bride of Lammermoor |
