| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister: Well, the scene in the garden now helped me to answer these questions
much better than I could have answered them before its occurrence. With
one fact--the great fact of love--established, it was not difficult to
account for at least one or two of the several things that puzzled me.
There could be no doubt that Hortense loved John Mayrant, loved him
beyond her own control. When this love had begun, made no matter. Perhaps
it began on the bridge, when the money was torn, and Eliza La Heu had
appeared. The Kings Port version of Hortense's indifference to John
before the event of the phosphates might well enough be true. It might
even well enough be true that she had taken him and his phosphates at
Newport for lack of anything better at hand, and because she was sick of
|
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 Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau by Honore de Balzac: keep to my own sphere, the human head; hats and oil are well-known
preservatives of the public hair."
Popinot returned to his aunt's house, where he was to sleep, in such a
fever, caused by his visions of success, that the streets seemed to
him to be running oil. He slept little, dreamed that his hair was
madly growing, and saw two angels who unfolded, as they do in
melodramas, a scroll on which was written "Oil Cesarine." He woke,
recollected the dream, and vowed to give the oil of nuts that sacred
name, accepting the sleeping fancy as a celestial mandate.
*****
Cesar and Popinot were at their work-shop in the Faubourg du Temple
Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau |
