| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Juana by Honore de Balzac: increase. Mothers and gamblers are alike insatiable.
When Juana saw the generous pardon laid silently on the head of Juan
by Diard's fatherly affection, she was much moved, and from the day
when the husband and wife changed parts she felt for him the true and
deep interest she had hitherto shown to him as a matter of duty only.
If that man had been more consistent in his life; if he had not
destroyed by fitful inconstancy and restlessness the forces of a true
though excitable sensibility, Juana would doubtless have loved him in
the end. Unfortunately, he was a type of those southern natures which
are keen in perceptions they cannot follow out; capable of great
things over-night, and incapable the next morning; often the victim of
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from My Aunt Margaret's Mirror by Walter Scott: the watery element to die under Nelson's banner. There is the
hazel copse also, in which my brother Henry used to gather nuts,
thinking little that he was to die in an Indian jungle in quest
of rupees.
There is so much more of remembrance about the little walk, that
--as I stop, rest on my crutch-headed cane, and look round with
that species of comparison between the thing I was and that which
I now am--it almost induces me to doubt my own identity; until I
find myself in face of the honeysuckle porch of Aunt Margaret's
dwelling, with its irregularity of front, and its odd, projecting
latticed windows, where the workmen seem to have made it a study
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lucile by Owen Meredith: On the brow of the boy. A light finger is pressing
Softly, softly the sore wounds: the hot blood-stain'd dressing
Slips from them. A comforting quietude steals
Through the rack'd weary frame; and, throughout it, he feels
The slow sense of a merciful, mild neighborhood.
Something smooths the toss'd pillow. Beneath a gray hood
Of rough serge, two intense tender eyes are bent o'er him,
And thrill through and through him. The sweet form before him,
It is surely Death's angel Life's last vigil keeping!
A soft voice says . . . "Sleep!"
And he sleeps: he is sleeping.
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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 The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: "And there would be no religion at all," said Madame Piedefer, who had
been making strangely wry faces all through this discussion.
"You are paining them very much," said Bianchon to Lousteau in an
undertone. "Do not talk of religion; you are saying things that are
enough to upset them."
"If I were a writer or a romancer," said Monsieur Gravier, "I should
take the side of the luckless husbands. I, who have seen many things,
and strange things too, know that among the ranks of deceived husbands
there are some whose attitude is not devoid of energy, men who, at a
crisis, can be very dramatic, to use one of your words, monsieur," he
said, addressing Etienne.
The Muse of the Department |
