| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: a month; the commonest book-keeper in Paris earns that by the time
he is eighteen, giving little more than four hours a day to his
work.
By a most unusual piece of luck, perhaps because of the
distinction my devoted studies won for me, I was made, in 1828,
when I was twenty-five years old, engineer-in-ordinary. I was
sent, as you know, to a sub-prefecture, with a salary of twenty-
five hundred francs. The question of money is nothing. Certainly
my fate has been more brilliant than the son of a carpenter might
expect; but where will you find a grocer's boy, who, if thrown
into a shop at sixteen, will not in ten years be on the high-road
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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 Three Taverns by Edwin Arlington Robinson: But she had felt them and should feel for ever,
She thought, their cold and lonely desperation
That had the bitterness of all cold things
That were not cruel. "I should have wept," he said,
"If I had been the Master. . . ."
Now she could feel
His hands above her hair -- the same black hair
That once he made a jest of, praising it,
While Martha's busy eyes had left their work
To flash with laughing envy. Nothing of that
Was to be theirs again; and such a thought
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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 Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: an ordinary man. No, no, no! Now--just to give you an idea--
I don't mind telling you, he wanted to shoot me, too, one day--
but I don't judge him.' `Shoot you!' I cried `What for?'
`Well, I had a small lot of ivory the chief of that village
near my house gave me. You see I used to shoot game
for them. Well, he wanted it, and wouldn't hear reason.
He declared he would shoot me unless I gave him the ivory
and then cleared out of the country, because he could do so,
and had a fancy for it, and there was nothing on earth
to prevent him killing whom he jolly well pleased.
And it was true, too. I gave him the ivory. What did I care!
Heart of Darkness |
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 Life in the Iron-Mills by Rebecca Davis: one who speaks from a strong heart deeply moved with remorse or
pity, "thee shall begin thy life again,--there on the hills. I
came too late; but not for thee,--by God's help, it may be."
Not too late. Three years after, the Quaker began her work. I
end my story here. At evening-time it was light. There is no
need to tire you with the long years of sunshine, and fresh air,
and slow, patient Christ-love, needed to make healthy and
hopeful this impure body and soul. There is a homely pine
house, on one of these hills, whose windows overlook broad,
wooded slopes and clover-crimsoned meadows,--niched into the
very place where the light is warmest, the air freest. It is
Life in the Iron-Mills |
