| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Message by Honore de Balzac: is almost entirely led by his wife, yet imagines himself to be
the master; apt to domineer in trifles, and to let more important
things slip past unheeded--there you have the man!
But the Countess! Ah, how sharp and startling the contrast
between husband and wife! The Countess was a little woman, with a
flat, graceful figure and enchanting shape; so fragile, so dainty
was she, that you would have feared to break some bone if you so
much as touched her. She wore a white muslin dress, a rose-
colored sash, and rose-colored ribbons in the pretty cap on her
head; her chemisette was moulded so deliciously by her shoulders
and the loveliest rounded contours, that the sight of her
|
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 Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: road undulated over little hills. Nothing was to be heard but the
grating of the grasshoppers. The sun heated the yellowed grass; the
ground was all chinked with crevices which in dividing formed, as it
were, monstrous paving-stones. Sometimes a viper passed, or eagles
flew by; the slave still continued running. Salammbo mused beneath her
veils, and in spite of the heat did not lay them aside through fear of
soiling her beautiful garments.
At regular distances stood towers built by the Carthaginians for the
purpose of keeping watch upon the tribes. They entered these for the
sake of the shade, and then set out again.
For prudence sake they had made a wide detour the day before. But they
Salammbo |
