| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Marriage Contract by Honore de Balzac: question which it raised either for or against his wife. Love is
sometimes as great and true when smothered in words as it is in brief,
strong sentences.
To understand the situation into which Paul de Manerville was about to
enter we must think of him as he was at this moment, floating upon the
ocean as he floated upon his past, looking back upon the years of his
life as he looked at the limitless water and cloudless sky about him,
and ending his reverie by returning, through tumults of doubt, to
faith, the pure, unalloyed and perfect faith of the Christian and the
lover, which enforced the voice of his faithful heart.
It is necessary to give here his own letter to de Marsay written on
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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 Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri: His substance. Slayers, and each one that smites
In malice, plund'rers, and all robbers, hence
The torment undergo of the first round
In different herds. Man can do violence
To himself and his own blessings: and for this
He in the second round must aye deplore
With unavailing penitence his crime,
Whoe'er deprives himself of life and light,
In reckless lavishment his talent wastes,
And sorrows there where he should dwell in joy.
To God may force be offer'd, in the heart
The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) |
