| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: dupe of this old woman, so cunning and so practised in intrigue.
"That perfidious Duchess," said she to herself, "has perhaps been
amusing herself by preaching morality to me while playing me some
spiteful trick of her own."
At this thought Madame de Vaudremont's pride was perhaps more roused
than her curiosity to disentangle the thread of this intrigue. In the
absorption of mind to which she was a prey she was no longer mistress
of herself. The Colonel, interpreting to his own advantage the
embarrassment evident in the Countess' manner and speech, became more
ardent and pressing. The old blase diplomates, amusing themselves by
watching the play of faces, had never found so many intrigues at once
|
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 McTeague by Frank Norris: outcries and sulky resistance Trina had induced her husband
to consent to such a move, bewildering him with a torrent of
phrases and marvellous columns of figures by which she
proved conclusively that they were in a condition but one
remove from downright destitution.
The dentist continued idle. Since his ill success with the
manufacturers of surgical instruments he had made but two
attempts to secure a job. Trina had gone to see Uncle
Oelbermann and had obtained for McTeague a position in the
shipping department of the wholesale toy store. However, it
was a position that involved a certain amount of ciphering,
McTeague |
