The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Deserted Woman by Honore de Balzac: to awake a philosopher afterwards. M. de Nueil was far too deeply in
love to sleep; he rose and betook to inditing letters, but none of
them were satisfactory, and he burned them all.
The next day he went to Courcelles to make the circuit of her garden
walls, but he waited till nightfall; he was afraid that she might see
him. The instinct that led him to act in this way arose out of so
obscure a mood of the soul, that none but a young man, or a man in
like case, can fully understand its mute ecstasies and its vagaries,
matter to set those people who are lucky enough to see life only in
its matter-of-fact aspect shrugging their shoulders. After painful
hesitation, Gaston wrote to Mme. de Beauseant. Here is the letter,
|
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 Alexander's Bridge by Willa Cather: the rushing river and his burning heart.
Alexander sat up and looked about him.
The train was tearing on through the darkness.
All his companions in the day-coach were
either dozing or sleeping heavily,
and the murky lamps were turned low.
How came he here among all these dirty people?
Why was he going to London? What did it
mean--what was the answer? How could this
happen to a man who had lived through that
magical spring and summer, and who had felt
Alexander's Bridge |