| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from McTeague by Frank Norris: horses. We'll see if we can knock over a couple of antelope
to-morrow, and then we'll scoot."
"I ain't got a gun," said the dentist; "not even a revolver.
I--"
"Wait a second," said Cribbens, pausing in his scramble down
the side of one of the smaller gulches. "Here's some slate
here; I ain't seen no slate around here yet. Let's see
where it goes to."
McTeague followed him along the side of the gulch. Cribbens
went on ahead, muttering to himself from time to time:
"Runs right along here, even enough, and here's water too.
McTeague |
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 Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: foreign to them. They see only themselves in themselves. This instinct
brings them, unconsciously, to choose the things that are most
convenient to themselves, at the sacrifice of those which might be
more agreeable to others. Without rendering account to their own minds
of the difference between themselves and other women, they end by
feeling that difference and suffering under it. Jealousy is an
indelible sentiment in the female breast. An old maid's soul is
jealous and yet void; for she knows but one side--the miserable side--
of the only passion men will allow (because it flatters them) to
women. Thus thwarted in all their hopes, forced to deny themselves the
natural development of their natures, old maids endure an inward
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