| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac: an interpretation. I have made inquiries about him, and I find he is
one of those mischievous priests who worm themselves into the
confidence of families for their own ends; he has already destroyed
the harmony of one home,--that of Monsieur de Granville, attorney-
general of the royal court of Paris under the Restoration.
As to the truth or falsehood of these suppositions I know nothing,
and, in all probability, shall continue to know nothing. But, as you
can easily understand, the thought of Marianina is a luminous point to
which my eye is forever attached. Shall I love her? Shall I hate her
and despise her? That is the question perpetually in my mind.
Uncertainty of that kind is far more certain to fix a woman in a man's
|
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: susceptible than any other part of the organisation, to the action of any
change in the conditions of life. Nothing is more easy than to tame an
animal, and few things more difficult than to get it to breed freely under
confinement, even in the many cases when the male and female unite. How
many animals there are which will not breed, though living long under not
very close confinement in their native country! This is generally
attributed to vitiated instincts; but how many cultivated plants display
the utmost vigour, and yet rarely or never seed! In some few such cases it
has been found out that very trifling changes, such as a little more or
less water at some particular period of growth, will determine whether or
not the plant sets a seed. I cannot here enter on the copious details
On the Origin of Species |
