| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac: various attitudes, stamped with the different expression which each
strove to give to an affected sorrow. In the fashionable world nobody
takes any interest in grief or suffering; everything is talk. The men
were walking up and down the room or in the garden. Clotilde and
Josephine were busy at the tea-table. The Vidame de Pamiers, the Duc
de Grandlieu, the Marquis d'Ajuda-Pinto, and the Duc de Maufrigneuse
were playing Wisk, as they called it, in a corner of the room.
When Lucien was announced he walked across the room to make his bow to
the Duchess, asking the cause of the grief he could read in her face.
"Madame de Chaulieu has just had dreadful news; her son-in-law, the
Baron de Macumer, ex-duke of Soria, is just dead. The young Duc de
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Commission in Lunacy by Honore de Balzac: being low at the time when he settled in that quarter, in order to be
among the schools and to superintend his boys' education. Moreover,
the state in which he found the place, with everything to repair, had
no doubt induced the owner to be accommodating. Thus M. d'Espard had
been able to go to some expense to settle himself suitably without
being accused of extravagance. The loftiness of the rooms, the
paneling, of which nothing survived but the frames, the decoration of
the ceilings, all displayed the dignity which the prelacy stamped on
whatever it attempted or created, and which artists discern to this
day in the smallest relic that remains, though it be but a book, a
dress, the panel of a bookcase, or an armchair.
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Charmides and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde: Like Baal, when his prophets howled that name
From morn to noon on Carmel's smitten height.'
Nay, peace, I shall behold, before the night,
The feet of brass, the robe more white than flame,
The wounded hands, the weary human face.
AT VERONA
How steep the stairs within King's houses are
For exile-wearied feet as mine to tread,
And O how salt and bitter is the bread
Which falls from this Hound's table, - better far
That I had died in the red ways of war,
|
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 Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift: Her sex, with universal voice,
Must laugh at her capricious choice.
Cadenus many things had writ,
Vanessa much esteemed his wit,
And called for his poetic works!
Meantime the boy in secret lurks.
And while the book was in her hand,
The urchin from his private stand
Took aim, and shot with all his strength
A dart of such prodigious length,
It pierced the feeble volume through,
|
