| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: hair." Eugenie looked at Nanon. "Holy Virgin! don't look at me that
way, mademoiselle; your eyes are like those of a lost soul."
From that day the beauty of Mademoiselle Grandet took a new character.
The solemn thoughts of love which slowly filled her soul, and the
dignity of the woman beloved, gave to her features an illumination
such as painters render by a halo. Before the coming of her cousin,
Eugenie might be compared to the Virgin before the conception; after
he had gone, she was like the Virgin Mother,--she had given birth to
love. These two Marys so different, so well represented by Spanish
art, embody one of those shining symbols with which Christianity
abounds.
 Eugenie Grandet |
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 Grimm's Fairy Tales by Brothers Grimm: and drunk, he showed each of them to a bed-chamber.
The next morning he came to the eldest and took him to a marble table,
where there were three tablets, containing an account of the means by
which the castle might be disenchanted. The first tablet said: 'In the
wood, under the moss, lie the thousand pearls belonging to the king's
daughter; they must all be found: and if one be missing by set of sun,
he who seeks them will be turned into marble.'
The eldest brother set out, and sought for the pearls the whole day:
but the evening came, and he had not found the first hundred: so he
was turned into stone as the tablet had foretold.
The next day the second brother undertook the task; but he succeeded
 Grimm's Fairy Tales |