| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: execution cost the King of Spain the greater part of his possessions
in the Netherlands. Of all the seed sown in the earth, the blood of
martyrs gives the quickest harvest. When Philip the Second, who
punished revolt through two generations, stretched his iron sceptre
over Douai, the Claes preserved their great wealth by allying
themselves in marriage with the very noble family of Molina, whose
elder branch, then poor, thus became rich enough to buy the county of
Nourho which they had long held titularly in the kingdom of Leon.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, after vicissitudes which
are of no interest to our present purpose, the family of Claes was
represented at Douai in the person of Monsieur Balthazar Claes-Molina,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Herodias by Gustave Flaubert: towards the stranger, drawing the cutlass that he wore upon his hip.
"Kill him!" cried Herodias.
"Do not touch him!" the tetrarch commanded.
The two men stood motionless for an instant, then they descended the
terrace, both taking a different direction, although they kept their
eyes fixed upon each other.
"I know that man," said Herodias, after they had disappeared. "His
name is Phanuel, and he will try to seek out Iaokanann, since thou
wert so foolish as to allow him to live."
Antipas said that the man might some day be useful to them. His
attacks upon Jerusalem would gain them the allegiance of the rest of
Herodias |
