| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Ball at Sceaux by Honore de Balzac: most contemptuous caprice. Among the young girls of fashion, not one
knew better than she how to assume an air of reserve when a man of
talent was introduced to her, or how to display the insulting
politeness which treats an equal as an inferior, and to pour out her
impertinence on all who tried to hold their heads on a level with
hers. Wherever she went she seemed to be accepting homage rather than
compliments, and even in a princess her airs and manner would have
transformed the chair on which she sat into an imperial throne.
Monsieur de Fontaine discovered too late how utterly the education of
the daughter he loved had been ruined by the tender devotion of the
whole family. The admiration which the world is at first ready to
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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 Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: honeyed word. To grieve the woman I love--Pauline, I should count
it a crime. Tell me the truth, do not put me off with some
magnanimous subterfuge, but forgive me without cruelty."
FRAGMENT.
"Is so perfect an attachment happiness? Yes, for years of
suffering would not pay for an hour of love.
"Yesterday, your sadness, as I suppose, passed into my soul as
swiftly as a shadow falls. Were you sad or suffering? I was
wretched. Whence came my distress? Write to me at once. Why did I
not know it? We are not yet completely one in mind. At two
leagues' distance or at a thousand I ought to feel your pain and
 Louis Lambert |