| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Pierrette by Honore de Balzac: Rogron, who did not understand his sister's anger, said to Pierrette:
"What is all this about? Try to please your cousin, Pierrette; she is
very indulgent to you, very gentle, and if you put her out of temper
the fault is certainly yours. Why do you squabble so? For my part I
like to live in peace. Look at Mademoiselle Bathilde and take pattern
by her."
Pierrette felt able to bear everything. Brigaut would come at midnight
and bring her an answer, and that hope was the viaticum of her day.
But she was using up her last strength. She did not go to bed, and
stood waiting for the hour to strike. At last midnight sounded; softly
she opened the window; this time she used a string made by tying bits
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Bucolics by Virgil: My lover's saner senses, whereunto
There lacketh nothing save the power of song.
"Draw from the town, my songs, draw Daphnis home.
Songs can the very moon draw down from heaven
Circe with singing changed from human form
The comrades of Ulysses, and by song
Is the cold meadow-snake, asunder burst.
"Draw from the town, my songs, draw Daphnis home.
These triple threads of threefold colour first
I twine about thee, and three times withal
Around these altars do thine image bear:
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg by Mark Twain: congratulating fervently--meantime the Chair was hammering with the
gavel and shouting:
"Order, gentlemen! Order! Order! Let me finish reading, please."
When quiet was restored, the reading was resumed--as follows:
"'GO, AND REFORM--OR, MARK MY WORDS--SOME DAY, FOR YOUR SINS YOU
WILL DIE AND GO TO HELL OR HADLEYBURG--TRY AND MAKE IT THE FORMER.'"
A ghastly silence followed. First an angry cloud began to settle
darkly upon the faces of the citizenship; after a pause the cloud
began to rise, and a tickled expression tried to take its place;
tried so hard that it was only kept under with great and painful
difficulty; the reporters, the Brixtonites, and other strangers bent
The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg |
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 Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Karl Marx: had elected upon its convening, and the party of the "National"
subsequently utilized the outbreak of the June insurrection to dismiss
this Executive Committee also, and thus rid itself of its nearest
rivals--the small traders' class or democratic republicans
(Ledru-Rollin, etc.). Cavaignac, the General of the bourgeois
republican party, who command at the battle of June, stepped into the
place of the Executive Committee with a sort of dictatorial power.
Marrast, former editor-in-chief of the "National", became permanent
President of the Constitutional National Assembly, and the Secretaryship
of State, together with all the other important posts, devolved upon the
pure republicans.
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