| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: fourth, or, on a pale endorsed, three batons fleurdelises gules;
supported by four griffon's-claws jessant from the sides of the
escutcheon, with the motto "En Lupus in Historia," was able to
surmount these rather satirical arms with a count's coronet.
Towards the close of the year 1830 Monsieur Rabourdin did some
business on hand which required him to visit the old ministry, where
the bureaus had all been in great commotion, owing to a general
removal of officials, from the highest to the lowest. This revolution
bore heaviest, in point of fact, upon the lackeys, who are not fond of
seeing new faces. Rabourdin had come early, knowing all the ways of
the place, and he thus chanced to overhear a dialogue between the two
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: what I regarded as at best but a harmless, and by no means an
unnatural, precaution.
At the request of Usher, I personally aided him in the
arrangements for the temporary entombment. The body having been
encoffined, we two alone bore it to its rest. The vault in which
we placed it (and which had been so long unopened that our
torches, half smothered in its oppressive atmosphere, gave us
little opportunity for investigation) was small, damp, and
entirely without means of admission for light; lying, at great
depth, immediately beneath that portion of the building in which
was my own sleeping apartment. It had been used, apparently, in
The Fall of the House of Usher |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: the story of their quarrel, it yet vexed him that her depth of
reserve should give him no opening and should have the effect of a
magnanimity greater even than his own.
He challenged himself, denounced himself, asked himself if he were
in love with her that he should care so much what adventures she
had had. He had never for a moment allowed he was in love with
her; therefore nothing could have surprised him more than to
discover he was jealous. What but jealousy could give a man that
sore contentious wish for the detail of what would make him suffer?
Well enough he knew indeed that he should never have it from the
only person who to-day could give it to him. She let him press her
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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 Paz by Honore de Balzac: "Yes," said Malaga, "the man's as cold as an icicle."
"But he's a good fellow all the same," cried Chapuzot, who was happy
in a new suit of clothes made of blue cloth, in which he looked like
the servant of some minister.
The sum which Paz deposited weekly on the mantel-piece, joined to
Malaga's meagre salary, gave her the means of sumptuous living
compared with her former poverty. Wonderful stories went the rounds of
the Circus about Malaga's good-luck. Her vanity increased the six
thousand francs which Paz had spent on her furniture to sixty
thousand. According to the clowns and the supers, Malaga was
squandering money; and she now appeared at the Circus wearing burnous
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