| 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: injurious influence of close interbreeding is thus prevented. Any one may
readily convince himself of the efficiency of insect-agency by examining
the flowers of the more sterile kinds of hybrid rhododendrons, which
produce no pollen, for he will find on their stigmas plenty of pollen
brought from other flowers.
In regard to animals, much fewer experiments have been carefully tried than
with plants. If our systematic arrangements can be trusted, that is if the
genera of animals are as distinct from each other, as are the genera of
plants, then we may infer that animals more widely separated in the scale
of nature can be more easily crossed than in the case of plants; but the
hybrids themselves are, I think, more sterile. I doubt whether any case of
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 To-morrow by Joseph Conrad: chokey for that without asking questions--no great
matter, only he was confoundedly afraid of being
locked up, even in mistake. He turned cold at the
thought. He stamped his feet on the sod-
den grass.
"What are you?--a sailor?" said an agitated
voice.
She had flitted out, a shadow herself, attracted
by the reckless shadow waiting under the wall of
her home.
"Anything. Enough of a sailor to be worth
To-morrow |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac: book----"
"Well, listen Monsieur le Baron," said Asie, assuming the attitude of
a Semiramis. "You have been squeezed dry enough already. Now, as sure
as my name is Saint-Esteve--in the way of business, of course--I will
stand by you."
"Goot, I shall repay you."
"I believe you, my boy, for I have shown you that I know how to be
revenged. Besides, I tell you this, daddy, I know how to snuff out
your Madame Esther as you would snuff a candle. And I know my lady!
When the little huzzy has once made you happy, she will be even more
necessary to you than she is at this moment. You paid me well; you
|
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 Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: easily caught, but then it must be this particular way:
Go to the same hole in which I caught my Chub, where, in most hot
days, you will find a dozen or twenty Chevens floating near the top of
the water. Get two or three grasshoppers, as you go over the meadow:
and get secretly behind the tree, and stand as free from motion as is
possible. Then put a grasshopper on your hook, and let your hook hang
a quarter of a yard short of the water, to which end you must rest your
rod on some bough of the tree. But it is likely the Chubs will sink down
towards the bottom of the water, at the first shadow of your rod (for
Chub is the fearfullest of fishes), and will do so if but a bird flies over
him and makes the least shadow on the water; but they will presently
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