| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac: sign, alleging his ignorance of the forms of French law.
"That is enough for to-day," said Monsieur Camusot. "You must be
wanting food. I will have you taken back to the Conciergerie."
"Alas! I am suffering too much to be able to eat," said Jacques
Collin.
Camusot was anxious to time Jacques Collin's return to coincide with
the prisoners' hour of exercise in the prison yard; but he needed a
reply from the Governor of the Conciergerie to the order he had given
him in the morning, and he rang for the usher. The usher appeared, and
told him that the porter's wife, from the house on the Quai Malaquais,
had an important document to communicate with reference to Monsieur
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad: the quarter-deck. The starlight seemed to die out
before reaching that spot, but when I asked
quietly: "Are you there, men?" my eyes made out
shadow forms starting up around me, very few,
very indistinct; and a voice spoke: "All here, sir."
Another amended anxiously:
"All that are any good for anything, sir."
Both voices were very quiet and unringing; with-
out any special character of readiness or discour-
agement. Very matter-of-fact voices.
"We must try to haul this mainsail close up," I said.
The Shadow Line |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Wheels of Chance by H. G. Wells: "She has no friends. We have no one. After all--Two women.--So
helpless."
And this fair-haired little figure was the woman that people who
knew her only from her books, called bold, prurient even! Simply
because she was great-hearted--intellectual. He was overcome by
the unspeakable pathos of her position.
"Mrs. Milton," he said. "Hetty!"
She glanced at him. The overflow was imminent. "Not now," she
said, "not now. I must find her first."
"Yes," he said with intense emotion. (He was one of those big,
fat men who feel deeply.) "But let me help you. At least let 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 The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: watch for the moment of exhaustion, which the priest told her would
inevitably supervene, and then she pleaded in behalf of the children.
She restricted herself to urging that Dinah and Lousteau should live
apart, not asking her to give him up. In real life these violent
situations are not closed as they are in books, by death or cleverly
contrived catastrophes; they end far less poetically--in disgust, in
the blighting of every flower of the soul, in the commonplace of
habit, and very often too in another passion, which robs a wife of the
interest which is traditionally ascribed to women. So, when common
sense, the law of social proprieties, family interest--all the mixed
elements which, since the Restoration, have been dignified by the mane
The Muse of the Department |
