| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas: evil-doer shall pay the penalty for both. A man of his name
may be a conspirator, and even a traitor, but he ought not
to be a thief."
"A thief!" cried Rosa. "Cornelius a thief? Pray, your
Highness, do not say such a word, it would kill him, if he
knew it. If theft there has been, I swear to you, Sir, no
one else but this man has committed it."
"Prove it," Boxtel coolly remarked.
"I shall prove it. With God's help I shall."
Then, turning towards Boxtel, she asked, --
"The tulip is yours?"
The Black Tulip |
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 Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: were stamping on the pavement of the silent courtyard, while the
coachman was asleep on his box after cursing for the hundredth time
his tardy customer.
The next morning about eight o'clock the old gentleman mounted the
stairs of a house in the rue de l'Observance where Octave de Camps was
living. If there was ever an astonished man it was the young professor
when he beheld his uncle. The door was unlocked, his lamp still
burning; he had been sitting up all night.
"You rascal!" said Monsieur de Bourbonne, sitting down in the nearest
chair; "since when is it the fashion to laugh at uncles who have
twenty-six thousand francs a year from solid acres to which we are the
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