| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: display of distinct breeds.
To sum up on the origin of our Domestic Races of animals and plants. I
believe that the conditions of life, from their action on the reproductive
system, are so far of the highest importance as causing variability. I do
not believe that variability is an inherent and necessary contingency,
under all circumstances, with all organic beings, as some authors have
thought. The effects of variability are modified by various degrees of
inheritance and of reversion. Variability is governed by many unknown
laws, more especially by that of correlation of growth. Something may be
attributed to the direct action of the conditions of life. Something must
be attributed to use and disuse. The final result is thus rendered
On the Origin of Species |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Don Quixote by Miquel de Cervantes: present at the deaths of the Counts Egmont and Horn, and was
promoted to be ensign under a famous captain of Guadalajara, Diego
de Urbina by name. Some time after my arrival in Flanders news came of
the league that his Holiness Pope Pius V of happy memory, had made
with Venice and Spain against the common enemy, the Turk, who had just
then with his fleet taken the famous island of Cyprus, which
belonged to the Venetians, a loss deplorable and disastrous. It was
known as a fact that the Most Serene Don John of Austria, natural
brother of our good king Don Philip, was coming as
commander-in-chief of the allied forces, and rumours were abroad of
the vast warlike preparations which were being made, all which stirred
Don Quixote |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner: but the time had set its mark on her. He looked at her carefully, from the
brown, smooth head to the little crossed feet on the floor. A worn look
had grown over the little face, and it made its charm for him stronger.
For pain and time, which trace deep lines and write a story on a human
face, have a strangely different effect on one face and another. The face
that is only fair, even very fair, they mar and flaw; but to the face whose
beauty is the harmony between that which speaks from within and the form
through which it speaks, power is added by all that causes the outer man to
bear more deeply the impress of the inner. The pretty woman fades with the
roses on her cheeks, and the girlhood that lasts an hour; the beautiful
woman finds her fullness of bloom only when a past has written itself on
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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 Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: in all possible circumstances," he used to say as he
struggled with the temptation to go away, and gave up his own soul
for others.
I remember reading in Gúsef's memoirs how my father
once, in conversation with Gusoryóf, the peasant, who had
made up his mind to leave his home for religious reasons, said, "My
life is a hundred thousand times more loathsome than yours, but yet
I cannot leave it."
I shall not enumerate all the letters of abuse and amazement
which my father received from all sides, upbraiding him with
luxury, with inconsistency, and even with torturing his peasants.
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