| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: fall from the leaden sky of that winter without sun-
shine. All the faces were sad. He could talk to
no one, and had no hope of ever understanding
anybody. It was as if these had been the faces of
people from the other world--dead people--he
used to tell me years afterwards. Upon my word,
I wonder he did not go mad. He didn't know
where he was. Somewhere very far from his moun-
tains--somewhere over the water. Was this Amer-
ica, he wondered?
"If it hadn't been for the steel cross at Miss
Amy Foster |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Criminal Sociology by Enrico Ferri: scientific inquiries into alcoholism as a direct and manifest
cause of crime and suicide.
I wrote as early as 1881 that alcoholism, prior to its becoming a
cause, is the effect of wretched social conditions in the poorer
classes; and that to the one-sided simplicity of economic causes
it is necessary to add certain bio-psychical conditions and
conditions of physical environment, which go far to determine the
geographical distribution of spirit-alcoholism (chronic and more
serious, in northern countries and provinces) and wine-alcoholism
(acute and less deep-seated, in the countries and provinces of the
south).
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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 A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: failing rapidly, old Mother Simon, who had lost her money in the
grocery business, came very morning to chop the wood and pump the
water.
Her eyesight grew dim. She did not open the shutters after that. Many
years passed. But the house did not sell or rent. Fearing that she
would be put out, Felicite did not ask for repairs. The laths of the
roof were rotting away, and during one whole winter her bolster was
wet. After Easter she spit blood.
Then Mother Simon went for a doctor. Felicite wished to know what her
complaint was. But, being too deaf to hear, she caught only one word:
"Pneumonia." She was familiar with it and gently answered:--"Ah! like
A Simple Soul |
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 Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley: his spurs in the great battle, and become fit to go with you and be
a man; because he has done the thing he did not like."
So Tom went home with Ellie on Sundays, and sometimes on week-days,
too; and he is now a great man of science, and can plan railroads,
and steam-engines, and electric telegraphs, and rifled guns, and so
forth; and knows everything about everything, except why a hen's
egg don't turn into a crocodile, and two or three other little
things which no one will know till the coming of the Cocqcigrues.
And all this from what he learnt when he was a water-baby,
underneath the sea.
"And of course Tom married Ellie?"
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