| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lesser Bourgeoisie by Honore de Balzac: hear of him."
Zelie and Minard exchanged a smile of satisfaction.
"To think that we must hob-nob with such common people, all for the
sake of our son!" cried Zelie, when Thuillier was safely down the
staircase, to which the mayor had accompanied him.
"Ha! he thinks to be deputy!" thought Thuillier, as he walked away.
"These grocers! nothing satisfies them. Heavens! what would Napoleon
say if he could see the government in the hands of such people! I'm a
trained administrator, at any rate. What a competitor, to be sure! I
wonder what la Peyrade will say?"
The ambitious ex-beau now went to invite the whole Laudigeois family
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: became the object of cruel practical jokes which led to a fatal issue.
One day one of the masters, who was bent on seeing the manuscripts,
enlisted the aid of our tyrants, and came to seize, by force, a box
that contained the precious papers. Lambert and I defended it with
incredible courage. The trunk was locked, our aggressors could not
open it, but they tried to smash it in the struggle, a stroke of
malignity at which we shrieked with rage. Some of the boys, with a
sense of justice, or struck perhaps by our heroic defence, advised the
attacking party to leave us in peace, crushing us with insulting
contempt. But suddenly, brought to the spot by the noise of a battle,
Father Haugoult roughly intervened, inquiring as to the cause of the
Louis Lambert |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Pool in the Desert by Sara Jeanette Duncan: find the courage to pronounce, but they had merit enough to prick
our sense of beauty delightfully where we found them--oh, they were
good!
'Heaven send it isn't a Tommy,' said Dora, with a falling
countenance. 'There is something absolutely inaccessible about a
Tommy.'
'How could it be?' I asked.
'Oh, there are some inspired ones. But it isn't--that's French
technique. It's an Englishman or an American who has worked in
Paris. What in the name of fortune is he doing here?'
'Oh,' I said, 'we have had them, you know. Val Prinsep came out at
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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 Merry Men by Robert Louis Stevenson: affairs.'
She seemed to recover herself at that, turned without a word,
walked rapidly through the garden, and disappeared into the house,
leaving Will in some confusion as to the result. He walked up and
down the garden, whistling softly to himself. Sometimes he stopped
and contemplated the sky and hill-tops; sometimes he went down to
the tail of the weir and sat there, looking foolishly in the water.
All this dubiety and perturbation was so foreign to his nature and
the life which he had resolutely chosen for himself, that he began
to regret Marjory's arrival. 'After all,' he thought, 'I was as
happy as a man need be. I could come down here and watch my fishes
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