| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: told her how I had first seen her four years earlier from that spot.
"The valley was so beautiful then!" I cried.
"And now?" she said quickly.
"You are beneath my tree, and the valley is ours!"
She bowed her head and that was our farewell; she got into her
carriage with Madeleine, and I into mine alone.
On my return to Paris I was absorbed in pressing business which took
all my time and kept me out of society, which for a while forgot me. I
corresponded with Madame de Mortsauf, and sent her my journal once a
week. She answered twice a month. It was a life of solitude yet
teeming, like those sequestered spots, blooming unknown, which I had
The Lily of the Valley |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: snowy ruffles, which told plainly that her laundress' bills amounted
to something like two thousand francs in the course of a year. Her
dark curls escaped from beneath a bright Indian handkerchief, knotted
carelessly about her head after the fashion of Creole women. The bed
lay in disorder that told of broken slumber. A painter would have paid
money to stay a while to see the scene that I saw. Under the luxurious
hanging draperies, the pillow, crushed into the depths of an eider-
down quilt, its lace border standing out in contrast against the
background of blue silk, bore a vague impress that kindled the
imagination. A pair of satin slippers gleamed from the great bear-skin
rug spread by the carved mahogany lions at the bed-foot, where she had
Gobseck |
