| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Eve and David by Honore de Balzac: to Paris to find a cure for love among the resources of science, and
there he tried to curry favor with the Liberal party.
As for Lucien, the story of his return to Paris belongs to the Scenes
of Parisian life.
ADDENDUM
Note: Eve and David is the third part of a trilogy. Part one is
entitled Two Poets and part two is A Distinguished Provincial at
Paris. In other references parts one and three are usually combined
under the title Lost Illusions.
The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
Cerizet
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: intelligence, she threw one of the prickly burrs at the Rev. Mr.
Dimmesdale. The sensitive clergyman shrank, with nervous dread,
from the light missile. Detecting his emotion, Pearl clapped her
little hands in the most extravagant ecstacy. Hester Prynne,
likewise, had involuntarily looked up, and all these four
persons, old and young, regarded one another in silence, till the
child laughed aloud, and shouted -- "Come away, mother! Come
away, or yonder old black man will catch you! He hath got
The Scarlet Letter |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: mark of his favour. The ceremony is performed in his majesty's
great chamber of state, where the candidates are to undergo a
trial of dexterity very different from the former, and such as I
have not observed the least resemblance of in any other country
of the new or old world. The emperor holds a stick in his hands,
both ends parallel to the horizon, while the candidates
advancing, one by one, sometimes leap over the stick, sometimes
creep under it, backward and forward, several times, according as
the stick is advanced or depressed. Sometimes the emperor holds
one end of the stick, and his first minister the other; sometimes
the minister has it entirely to himself. Whoever performs his
Gulliver's Travels |
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 Desert Gold by Zane Grey: thick-flanked stallion, a kingly mate for his full-bodied, glossy
consort, Blanca Reina. The other mare, Blanca Mujer, was dazzling
white, without a spot, perfectly pointed, racy, graceful, elegant,
yet carrying weight and brawn and range that suggested her relation
to her forebears.
The cowboys admitted some of Belding's claims for Diablo, but they
gave loyal and unshakable allegiance to Blanco Sol. As for Dick, he
had to fight himself to keep out of arguments, for he sometimes
imagined he was unreasonable about the horse. Though he could not
understand himself, he knew he loved Sol as a man loved a friend,
a brother. Free of heavy saddle and the clumsy leg shields, Blanco
Desert Gold |
