| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Russia in 1919 by Arthur Ransome: rough drafts of which were being printed in the newspapers
for discussion, and he showed me his own suggestions
in so far as the programme concerned labour. He wished
the programme to include, among other aims, the further
mechanization of production, particularly the mechanization
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
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: life: they merely confirmed his faith in its ultimate
"jolliness." Never had he more thoroughly enjoyed the things he
had always enjoyed. A good dinner had never been as good to
him, a beautiful sunset as beautiful; he still rejoiced in the
fact that he appreciated both with an equal acuity. He was as
proud as ever of Susy's cleverness and freedom from prejudice:
she couldn't be too "modern" for him now that she was his. He
shared to the full her passionate enjoyment of the present, and
all her feverish eagerness to make it last. He knew when she
was thinking of ways of extending their golden opportunity, and
he secretly thought with her, wondering what new means they
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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 Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: daughter in the tale of the /Wonderful Lamp/, she should have remained
always veiled. Her singing obscured the imperfect talents of the
Malibrans, the Sontags, and the Fodors, in whom some one dominant
quality always mars the perfection of the whole; whereas Marianina
combined in equal degree purity of tone, exquisite feeling, accuracy
of time and intonation, science, soul, and delicacy. She was the type
of that hidden poesy, the link which connects all the arts and which
always eludes those who seek it. Modest, sweet, well-informed, and
clever, none could eclipse Marianina unless it was her mother.
Have you ever met one of those women whose startling beauty defies the
assaults of time, and who seem at thirty-six more desirable than they
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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 The Time Machine by H. G. Wells: sideways, and something white ran past me. I turned with my
heart in my mouth, and saw a queer little ape-like figure, its
head held down in a peculiar manner, running across the sunlit
space behind me. It blundered against a block of granite,
staggered aside, and in a moment was hidden in a black shadow
beneath another pile of ruined masonry.
`My impression of it is, of course, imperfect; but I know it
was a dull white, and had strange large greyish-red eyes; also
that there was flaxen hair on its head and down its back. But,
as I say, it went too fast for me to see distinctly. I cannot
even say whether it ran on all-fours, or only with its forearms
The Time Machine |
