| 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: carried it in both hands carefully to his outhouse,
and, sitting alone on his pallet, would make the sign
of the cross before he began. Beside the same pal-
let, kneeling in the early darkness of the short days,
he recited aloud the Lord's Prayer before he slept.
Whenever he saw old Swaffer he would bow with
veneration from the waist, and stand erect while
the old man, with his fingers over his upper lip, sur-
veyed him silently. He bowed also to Miss Swaffer,
who kept house frugally for her father--a broad-
shouldered, big-boned woman of forty-five, with
Amy Foster |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: artificial, unnecessary, noxious careers like those of the commercial
schoolmaster). Languages, even dead ones, have their uses; and, as it
seems to many of us, mathematics have their uses. They will always be
learned by people who want to learn them; and people will always want
to learn them as long as they are of any importance in life: indeed
the want will survive their importance: superstition is nowhere
stronger than in the field of obsolete acquirements. And they will
never be learnt fruitfully by people who do not want to learn them
either for their own sake or for use in necessary work. There is no
harder schoolmaster than experience; and yet experience fails to teach
where there is no desire to learn.
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy: One night, when Farmer Oak had returned to, his
house, believing there would be no further necessity for
his attendance on the down, he called as usual to the
dogs, previously to shutting them up in the outhouse till
next morning. Only one responded -- old George; the
other-could not be found, either in the house, lane, or
garden. - Gabriel then remembered that he had left the
two dogs on the hill eating a dead lamb (a kind of meat
he usually kept from them, except when other food-ran
finished his meal, he went indoors to the luxury of a bed,
which latterly he had only enjoyed on Sundays.
Far From the Madding Crowd |
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 Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad: tion on the lips of any seaman whatever joining a
ship. I voiced it (confound this self-consciousness)
in a degage cheerful tone: "I suppose she can travel
--what?"
Now a question like this might have been an-
swered normally, either in accents of apologetic
sorrow or with a visibly suppressed pride, in a "I
don't want to boast, but you shall see," sort of
tone. There are sailors, too, who would have been
roughly outspoken: "Lazy brute," or openly de-
lighted: "She's a flyer." Two ways, if four
The Shadow Line |
