The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Men of Iron by Howard Pyle: through the uproar for "Myles Falworth! Myles Falworth!"
"Here I be," cried Myles, standing up on his cot. "Who calleth
me?"
It was the groom of the Earl's bedchamber, and seeing Myles
standing thus raised above the others, he came walking down the
length of the room towards him, the wonted hubbub gradually
silencing as he advanced and the youngsters turning, staring, and
wondering.
"My Lord would speak with thee, Myles Falworth," said the groom,
when he had come close enough to where Myles stood. "Busk thee
and make ready; he is at livery even now."
Men of Iron |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: the economy of nature. Yet it has been strongly urged by those great
naturalists, Milne Edwards and Agassiz, that embryonic characters are the
most important of any in the classification of animals; and this doctrine
has very generally been admitted as true. The same fact holds good with
flowering plants, of which the two main divisions have been founded on
characters derived from the embryo,--on the number and position of the
embryonic leaves or cotyledons, and on the mode of development of the
plumule and radicle. In our discussion on embryology, we shall see why
such characters are so valuable, on the view of classification tacitly
including the idea of descent.
Our classifications are often plainly influenced by chains of affinities.
On the Origin of Species |