| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: he wrote, he wrote. Sometimes he stood up for exercise.
When a truckle-bed with a sick man (some invalid agent
from upcountry) was put in there, he exhibited a gentle annoyance.
`The groans of this sick person,' he said, `distract my attention.
And without that it is extremely difficult to guard against
clerical errors in this climate.'
"One day he remarked, without lifting his head,
`In the interior you will no doubt meet Mr. Kurtz.'
On my asking who Mr. Kurtz was, he said he was a first-class agent;
and seeing my disappointment at this information, he added slowly,
laying down his pen, `He is a very remarkable person.'
Heart of Darkness |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Russia in 1919 by Arthur Ransome: of all unpleasant and dirty processes, improved sanitary
inspection, shortening of the working day in employments
harmful to health, forbidding women with child to do any
but very light work, and none at all for eight weeks before
giving birth and for eight weeks afterwards, forbidding
overtime, and so on. "We have already gone far beyond
our old programme, and our new one steps far ahead of us.
Russia is the first country in the world where all workers
have a fortnight's holiday in the year, and workers in
dangerous or unhealthy occupations have a month's."
I said, "Yes, but don't you find that there is a very long way
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Black Beauty by Anna Sewell: They did not give me a chance to know what they wanted.
I was high bred and had a great deal of spirit, and was very wild, no doubt,
and gave them, I dare say, plenty of trouble, but then it was dreadful
to be shut up in a stall day after day instead of having my liberty,
and I fretted and pined and wanted to get loose. You know yourself
it's bad enough when you have a kind master and plenty of coaxing,
but there was nothing of that sort for me.
"There was one -- the old master, Mr. Ryder -- who, I think,
could soon have brought me round, and could have done anything with me;
but he had given up all the hard part of the trade to his son
and to another experienced man, and he only came at times to oversee.
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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 Sanitary and Social Lectures by Charles Kingsley: with humanity, with Christ, with God; thrift of the immortal
spirit. I am not going now to give you a sermon on duty. You
hear such, I doubt not, in church every Sunday, far better than I
can preach to you. I am going to speak rather of thrift of the
heart, thrift of the emotions. How they are wasted in these days
in reading what are called sensation novels, all know but too
well; how British literature--all that the best hearts and
intellects among our forefathers have bequeathed to us--is
neglected for light fiction, the reading of which is, as a lady
well said, "the worst form of intemperance--dram-drinking and
opium-eating, intellectual and moral."
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