| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Lesson of the Master by Henry James: incentive, on St. George's lips, such a speech might be.
"Oh you - as if you hadn't! I should like so to hear you talk
together," she added ardently.
"That's very genial of you; but he'd have it all his own way. I'm
prostrate before him."
She had an air of earnestness. "Do you think then he's so
perfect?"
"Far from it. Some of his later books seem to me of a queerness -
!"
"Yes, yes - he knows that."
Paul Overt stared. "That they seem to me of a queerness - !"
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley: darling desire for a sea-life; and when he could not wander on the
quay and stare at the shipping, or go down to the pebble-ridge at
Northam, and there sit, devouring, with hungry eyes, the great
expanse of ocean, which seemed to woo him outward into boundless
space, he used to console himself, in school-hours, by drawing
ships and imaginary charts upon his slate, instead of minding his
"humanities."
Now it befell, upon an afternoon, that he was very busy at a map,
or bird's-eye view of an island, whereon was a great castle, and at
the gate thereof a dragon, terrible to see; while in the foreground
came that which was meant for a gallant ship, with a great flag
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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 Merry Men by Robert Louis Stevenson: angel, and she looked down again upon the ground in silence. He
could see her tremble.
'I hope you don't mind,' he went on, a little taken aback. 'You
ought not. I have turned it all over, and upon my soul there's
nothing in it. We should never be one whit nearer than we are just
now, and, if I am a wise man, nothing like so happy.'
'It is unnecessary to go round about with me,' she said. 'I very
well remember that you refused to commit yourself; and now that I
see you were mistaken, and in reality have never cared for me, I
can only feel sad that I have been so far misled.'
'I ask your pardon,' said Will stoutly; 'you do not understand my
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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 On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: cases species of the same genus will not take on each other. The pear can
be grafted far more readily on the quince, which is ranked as a distinct
genus, than on the apple, which is a member of the same genus. Even
different varieties of the pear take with different degrees of facility on
the quince; so do different varieties of the apricot and peach on certain
varieties of the plum.
As Gartner found that there was sometimes an innate difference in different
individuals of the same two species in crossing; so Sagaret believes this
to be the case with different individuals of the same two species in being
grafted together. As in reciprocal crosses, the facility of effecting an
union is often very far from equal, so it sometimes is in grafting; the
On the Origin of Species |
