| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Touchstone by Edith Wharton: "But you must have despised me."
"I've told you that would have been simpler."
"But how could you go on like this--hating the money?"
"I knew you would speak in time. I wanted you, first, to hate it
as I did."
He gazed at her with a kind of awe. "You're wonderful," he
murmured. "But you don't yet know the depths I've reached."
She raised an entreating hand. "I don't want to!"
"You're afraid, then, that you'll hate me?"
"No--but that you'll hate ME. Let me understand without your
telling me."
|
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 Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau by Honore de Balzac: contractors therefore had little trouble in seducing him. The
irresistible argument and threat, fully understood, of injuring him
professionally by calumniating his work were, however, less powerful
than a remark made by Lourdois about the lands near the Madeleine.
Birotteau did not expect to hold a single house upon them; he was
speculating only on the value of the land; but architects and
contractors are to each other very much what authors and actors are,--
mutually dependent. Grindot, ordered by Birotteau to stipulate the
costs, went for the interests of the builders against the bourgeoisie;
and the result was that three large contractors--Lourdois, Chaffaroux,
and Thorein the carpenter--proclaimed him "one of those good fellows
Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau |
