| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: reasonable.--Consider the state of politics. We are emerging from the
pit of the Revolution.--and you yourself are noble--He simply cannot
pay--"
"Monsieur--"
"You are hasty," said des Lupeaulx. "Listen. He cannot pay in money.
Well, then; you, a clever man, can take payment in favors--Royal or
Ministerial."
"What! When in 1793 my father put down one hundred thousand--"
"My dear sir, recrimination is useless. Listen to a simple statement
in political arithmetic: The collectorship at Sancerre is vacant; a
certain paymaster-general of the forces has a claim on it, but he has
The Muse of the Department |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: you think we have no right to make fun of a man who comes here, bag
and baggage, and demands that we hand over our property because,
forsooth, he is pleased to call us great men, painters, artists,
poets,--mixing us up gratuitously with a set of fools who have neither
house nor home, nor sous nor sense? Why should we put up with a rascal
who comes here and wants us to feather his nest by subscribing to a
newspaper which preaches a new religion whose first doctrine is, if
you please, that we are not to inherit from our fathers and mothers?
On my sacred word of honor, Pere Margaritis said things a great deal
more sensible. And now, what are you complaining about? You and
Margaritis seemed to understand each other. The gentlemen here present
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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 Silas Marner by George Eliot: or death in a family, when leeches were to be applied, or there was
a sudden disappointment in a monthly nurse. She was a "comfortable
woman"--good-looking, fresh-complexioned, having her lips always
slightly screwed, as if she felt herself in a sick-room with the
doctor or the clergyman present. But she was never whimpering; no
one had seen her shed tears; she was simply grave and inclined to
shake her head and sigh, almost imperceptibly, like a funereal
mourner who is not a relation. It seemed surprising that Ben
Winthrop, who loved his quart-pot and his joke, got along so well
with Dolly; but she took her husband's jokes and joviality as
patiently as everything else, considering that "men _would_ be
Silas Marner |
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 Altar of the Dead by Henry James: taken him a devious course, and it was a desert in which no
circling cabman hovered over possible prey. He paused on a corner
and measured the dreariness; then he made out through the gathered
dusk that he was in one of those tracts of London which are less
gloomy by night than by day, because, in the former case of the
civil gift of light. By day there was nothing, but by night there
were lamps, and George Stransom was in a mood that made lamps good
in themselves. It wasn't that they could show him anything, it was
only that they could burn clear. To his surprise, however, after a
while, they did show him something: the arch of a high doorway
approached by a low terrace of steps, in the depth of which - it
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