| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: nature found ample pasture during the vicissitudes of 1814 and 1815,
which absorbed all her interest.
At this time Louis Lambert was at once too proud and too poor to go in
search of a patroness who was traveling all over Europe. However, he
went on foot from Blois to Paris in the hope of seeing her, and
arrived, unluckily, on the very day of her death. Two letters from
Lambert to the Baroness remained unanswered. The memory of Madame de
Stael's good intentions with regard to Louis remains, therefore, only
in some few young minds, struck, as mine was, by the strangeness of
the story.
No one who had not gone through the training at our college could
Louis Lambert |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: salon was entered from an ante-chamber, which served as the dining-
room and communicated with the kitchen. This lower door, which was
wholly without the external charm usually seen even in the humblest
dwellings in Touraine, was covered by a mansard story, reached by a
stairway built on the outside of the house against the gable end and
protected by a shed-roof. A little garden, full of marigolds,
syringas, and elder-bushes, separated the house from the fields; and
all around the courtyard were detached buildings which were used in
the vintage season for the various processes of making wine.
CHAPTER IV
Margaritis was seated in an arm-chair covered with yellow Utrecht
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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 The Case of The Lamp That Went Out by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: late," said the commissioner. "We're working this case off
quickly. We will have the murderer here in half an hour at the
latest. He did not have much time to enjoy the stolen property. He
was here in Vienna this morning, and was arrested in Pressburg this
afternoon. Here is the telegram, read it."
Dr. von Riedau handed Muller the message. The commissioner was
evidently pleased and excited. The telegram read as follows: "Man
arrested here in possession of described purse containing four ten
gulden notes and four guldens in silver. Arrested in store of
second-hand clothes dealer Goldstamm. Will arrive this evening in
Vienna under guard."
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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 Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: the cooing of a donkey intoning its prayer to the evening star.
Master of mysteries and lord of law, high-pinnacled upon the throne of
thought, his face suffused with the dim splendors of the
Transfiguration, his legs intertwisted and his tongue a-cheek, the
editor spills his will along the paper and cuts it off in lengths to
suit. And at intervals from behind the veil of the temple is heard
the voice of the foreman demanding three inches of wit and six lines
of religious meditation, or bidding him turn off the wisdom and whack
up some pathos.
O, the Lord of Law on the Throne of Thought,
A gilded impostor is he.
The Devil's Dictionary |
