| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau by Honore de Balzac: have business relations with your house. You can confidently do
all that he asks of you; and in obliging him you will oblige
Your friend,
F. Du Tillet.
Du Tillet did not dot the /i/ in his signature. To those with whom he
did business this intentional error was a sign previously agreed upon.
The strongest recommendations, the warmest appeals contained in the
letter were to mean nothing. All such letters, in which exclamation
marks were suppliants and du Tillet placed himself, as it were, upon
his knees, were to be considered as extorted by necessity; he could
not refuse to write them, but they were to be regarded as not written.
Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau |
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 Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas: "Rosa, Rosa, I love you."
And as it was already day, he thought it right not to fall
asleep again, and he continued following up the line of
thought in which his mind was engaged when he awoke.
Ah! if Rosa had only conversed about the tulip, Cornelius
would have preferred her to Queen Semiramis, to Queen
Cleopatra, to Queen Elizabeth, to Queen Anne of Austria;
that is to say, to the greatest or most beautiful queens
whom the world has seen.
But Rosa had forbidden it under pain of not returning; Rosa
had forbidden the least mention of the tulip for three days.
The Black Tulip |
