| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Pierre Grassou by Honore de Balzac: worth of canvas. His wife has six thousand francs a year in dowry, and
he lives with his father-in-law. The Vervelles and the Grassous, who
agree delightfully, keep a carriage, and are the happiest people on
earth. Pierre Grassou never emerges from the bourgeois circle, in
which he is considered one of the greatest artists of the period. Not
a family portrait is painted between the barrier du Trone and the rue
du Temple that is not done by this great painter; none of them costs
less than five hundred francs. The great reason which the bourgeois
families have for employing him is this:--
"Say what you will of him, he lays by twenty thousand francs a year
with his notary."
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll: Yet there's a smile upon her face,
A smile that seems to say
'He'll think of me he'll think of me---
When he is far away!
'Though waters wide between us glide,
Our lives are warm and near:
No distance parts two faithful hearts
Two hearts that love so dear:
And I will trust my sailor-lad,
For ever and a day,
To think of me--to think of me---
Sylvie and Bruno |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Study of a Woman by Honore de Balzac: to blush at being taxed with a fidelity that women laugh at--in order,
perhaps, not to show that they envy it. However, he replied with
tolerable self-possession:--
"Why not, madame?"
Such are the blunders we all make at twenty-five.
This speech caused a violent commotion in Madame de Listomere's bosom;
but Rastignac did not yet know how to analyze a woman's face by a
rapid or sidelong glance. The lips of the marquise paled, but that was
all. She rang the bell for wood, and so constrained Rastignac to rise
and take his leave.
"If that be so," said the marquise, stopping Eugene with a cold and
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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 The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: On the Mountains of the Prairie,
On the great Red Pipe-stone Quarry,
Gitche Manito, the mighty,
He the Master of Life, descending,
On the red crags of the quarry
Stood erect, and called the nations,
Called the tribes of men together.
From his footprints flowed a river,
Leaped into the light of morning,
O'er the precipice plunging downward
Gleamed like Ishkoodah, the comet.
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