| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan by Honore de Balzac: the interview; it was quite impossible he could descend from the
pedestal on which madame de Cadignan had placed him. Neither Blondet
nor Rastignac saw any impropriety in attributing this love to the
princess; she whose past had given rise to so many anecdotes could
very well stand that lesser calumny. Together they began to relate to
d'Arthez the adventures of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse: her first
affair with de Marsay; her second with d'Ajuda, whom she had, they
said, distracted from his wife, thus avenging Madame de Beausant; also
her later connection with young d'Esgrignon, who had travelled with
her in Italy, and had horribly compromised himself on her account;
after that they told him how unhappy she had been with a certain
|
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 Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne: the bushes that clustered beneath the trees.
"Halloo! who is it?" cried the lime-burner, vexed at his son's
timidity, yet half infected by it. "Come forward, and show
yourself, like a man, or I'll fling this chunk of marble at your
head!"
"You offer me a rough welcome," said a gloomy voice, as the
unknown man drew nigh. "Yet I neither claim nor desire a kinder
one, even at my own fireside."
To obtain a distincter view, Bartram threw open the iron door of
the kiln, whence immediately issued a gush of fierce light, that
smote full upon the stranger's face and figure. To a careless eye
The Snow Image |
