| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: of your departure, the cause of which is still unknown to me. If she
installed me here at once, it was from necessity. The Abbe Poirel has
taken my apartment. I do not know if the furniture and things that are
in these rooms belong to you or to Mademoiselle; but if they are
yours, you know her scrupulous honesty; the sanctity of her life is
the guarantee of her rectitude. As for me, you are well aware of my
simple modes of living. I have slept for fifteen years in a bare room
without complaining of the dampness,--which, eventually will have
caused my death. Nevertheless, if you wish to return to this apartment
I will cede it to you willingly."
After hearing these terrible words, Birotteau forgot the canonry 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 Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence: another creature.
He took the old sheet and rubbed her down, she standing like a child.
Then he rubbed himself having shut the door of the hut. The fire was
blazing up. She ducked her head in the other end of the sheet, and
rubbed her wet hair.
'We're drying ourselves together on the same towel, we shall quarrel!'
he said.
She looked up for a moment, her hair all odds and ends.
'No!' she said, her eyes wide. 'It's not a towel, it's a sheet.' And
she went on busily rubbing her head, while he busily rubbed his.
Still panting with their exertions, each wrapped in an army blanket,
Lady Chatterley's Lover |
