| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from In Darkest England and The Way Out by General William Booth: a spirit merchant; feeling condemned over it, he gave it up, and was
out of work for weeks. The brokers were put in, but the Lord rescued
him just in time. The 5s. a week employer took him afterwards at 18s.,
and he is now earning 22s., and has left the ground-floor slum tenement
for a better house.
H.--Nine Elms Slum. Was saved on Easter Monday, out of work several
weeks before, is a labourer, seems very earnest, in terrible distress.
We allow his wife 2s. 6d. a week for cleaning the hall (to help them).
In addition to that, she gets another 2s. 6d. for nursing, and on that
husband, wife, and a couple of children pay the rent of 2s. a week and
drag out an existence. I have tried to get work for this man, but have
In Darkest England and The Way Out |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau by Honore de Balzac: in you. Let's do business together. You have got a reputation which
would be very useful to me. Oh! du Tillet was born to understand
Gobseck. Du Tillet will come to a bad end at the Bourse. If he is, as
they say, the tool of old Gobseck, he won't be allowed to go far.
Gobseck sits in a corner of his web like an old spider who has
travelled round the world. Sooner or later, ztit! the usurer will toss
him off as I do this glass of wine. So much the better! Du Tillet has
played me a trick--oh! a damnable trick."
At the end of an hour and a half spend in just such senseless chatter,
Birotteau attempted to get away, seeing that the late commercial
traveller was about to relate the adventure of a republican deputy of
Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau |
