| 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: real are not, I think, fatal to my theory.
These difficulties and objections may be classed under the following
heads:- Firstly, why, if species have descended from other species by
insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable
transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion instead of the
species being, as we see them, well defined?
Secondly, is it possible that an animal having, for instance, the structure
and habits of a bat, could have been formed by the modification of some
animal with wholly different habits? Can we believe that natural selection
could produce, on the one hand, organs of trifling importance, such as the
tail of a giraffe, which serves as a fly-flapper, and, on the other hand,
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 Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde: should have seen Arabella's expression! . . . But, look here, dear
boy. I don't know what to do about Mrs. Erlynne. Egad! I might
be married to her; she treats me with such demmed indifference.
She's deuced clever, too! She explains everything. Egad! she
explains you. She has got any amount of explanations for you - and
all of them different.
LORD WINDERMERE. No explanations are necessary about my friendship
with Mrs. Erlynne.
LORD AUGUSTUS. Hem! Well, look here, dear old fellow. Do you
think she will ever get into this demmed thing called Society?
Would you introduce her to your wife? No use beating about the
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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 The Tapestried Chamber by Walter Scott: I therefore caused the Tapestried Chamber, as we call it, to be
opened, and, without destroying its air of antiquity, I had such
new articles of furniture placed in it as became the modern
times. Yet, as the opinion that the room was haunted very
strongly prevailed among the domestics, and was also known in the
neighbourhood and to many of my friends, I feared some prejudice
might be entertained by the first occupant of the Tapestried
Chamber, which might tend to revive the evil report which it had
laboured under, and so disappoint my purpose of rendering it a
useful part or the house. I must confess, my dear Browne, that
your arrival yesterday, agreeable to me for a thousand reasons
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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 The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: and give yourself out, you fling yourself heart and soul into the
conversation, you give expression to your real feelings, you play when
you are at the card-table, chat while you chat, eat while you eat--
'improper! improper! improper!' Stendhal, one of the cleverest and
profoundest minds of the age, hit off the 'improper' excellently well
when he said that such-and-such a British peer did not dare to cross
his legs when he sat alone before his own hearth for fear of being
improper. An English gentlewoman, were she one of the rabid 'Saints'--
that most straitest sect of Protestants that would leave their whole
family to starve if the said family did anything 'improper'--may play
the deuce's own delight in her own bedroom, and need not be
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