The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: discoveries, and this was undoubtedly with the purpose of collecting
facts and submitting them to analysis--the only torch that can guide
us through the dark places of the most inscrutable work of nature. He
had too much good sense to dwell among the clouds of theories which
can all be expressed in a few words. In our day, is not the simplest
demonstration based on facts more highly esteemed than the most
specious system though defended by more or less ingenious inductions?
But as I did not know him at the period of his life when his
cogitations were, no doubt, the most productive of results, I can only
conjecture that the bent of his work must have been from that of his
first efforts of thought.
 Louis Lambert |
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 Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac: rising might be. Courtesy is only a thin veneer on the general
selfishness. I imagined society very different. Women count for little
in it; that may perhaps be a survival of Bonapartist ideas."
"Armande is coming on extraordinarily," said my mother.
"Mother, did you think I should never get beyond asking to see Mme. de
Stael?"
My father smiled, and rose from the table.
Saturday.
My dear, I have left one thing out. Here is the tidbit I have reserved
for you. The love which we pictured must be extremely well hidden; I
have seen not a trace of it. True, I have caught in drawing-rooms now
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