| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri: Lucan Phars. 1. v. 531.
v. 72. Bernard.] One of the first followers of the saint.
v. 76. Egidius.] The third of his disciples, who died in 1262.
His work, entitled Verba Aurea, was published in 1534, at Antwerp
See Lucas Waddingus, Annales Ordinis Minoris, p. 5.
v. 76. Sylvester.] Another of his earliest associates.
v. 83. Pietro Bernardone.] A man in an humble station of life
at Assisi.
v. 86. Innocent.] Pope Innocent III.
v. 90. Honorius.] His successor Honorius III who granted
certain privileges to the Franciscans.
 The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) |
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 Unconscious Comedians by Honore de Balzac: talent, little and great, artists in seed or flower, who are raising
to the glory of France that every-day monument called the Opera, an
assemblage of forces, wills, and forms of genius, nowhere collected as
in Paris.
"I have already seen the Opera," said Gazonal, with a self-sufficient
air.
"Yes, from a three-francs-sixty-sous seat among the gods," replied the
landscape painter; "just as you have seen Paris in the rue Croix-des-
Petits-Champs, without knowing anything about it. What did they give
at the Opera when you were there?"
"Guillaume Tell."
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