| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Prince of Bohemia by Honore de Balzac: overstepped the limits of my nature. You have left me no
confidence in myself; perhaps I am plain after all. Oh! I loathe
myself, I dream of my radiant Charles Edward, and my brain turns.
I shall go mad, I know I shall. Do not laugh, do not talk to me of
the fickleness of women. If we are inconstant, /you/ are strangely
capricious. You take away the hours of love that made a poor
creature's happiness for ten whole days; the hours on which she
drew to be charming and kind to all that came to see her! After
all, you were the source of my kindness to /him/; you do not know
what pain you give him. I wonder what I must do to keep you, or
simply to keep the right to be yours sometimes. . . . When I think
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas: XIII with Anne of Austria--for that affair was over--but he had
to adjust matters for M. de Bassompierre, who was embroiled with
the Duc d'Angouleme.
As to Monsieur, who had begun the siege, he left to the cardinal
the task of finishing it.
The city, notwithstanding the incredible perseverance of its
mayor, had attempted a sort of mutiny for a surrender; the mayor
had hanged the mutineers. This execution quieted the ill-
disposed, who resolved to allow themselves to die of hunger--this
death always appearing to them more slow and less sure than
strangulation.
The Three Musketeers |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Purse by Honore de Balzac: chimney-pots they are quite ill, and deprive themselves of an
evening at the Gymnase or the Porte-Saint-Martin Theatre, "on
account of repairs." Hippolyte, who had seen the performance
gratis of a comical scene with Monsieur Molineux as concerning
certain decorative repairs in his studio, was not surprised to
see the dark greasy paint, the oily stains, spots, and other
disagreeable accessories that varied the woodwork. And these
stigmata of poverty are not altogether devoid of poetry in an
artist's eyes.
Mademoiselle Leseigneur herself opened the door. On recognizing
the young artist she bowed, and at the same time, with Parisian
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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 White Moll by Frank L. Packard: both in personality and habits as the man was, was not blackmailed
out of it; that Danglar, yes, and hereafter, Perlmer too, should
not prey like vultures on the man, and rob him of what was
rightfully his. If, therefore, she secured those papers from
Perlmer's desk, it automatically put an end to Danglar's scheme
to-night; and if, later, she saw to it that those papers came into
Viner's possession, that, too, automatically ended Perlmer's
persecutions. Indeed, there seemed little likelihood of any danger
or risk at all. It could not be quite ten o clock yet; and it was
not likely that whoever was delegated by Danglar to rob Perlmer's
office would go there much before eleven anyway, since they would
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