| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War by Frederick A. Talbot: round 1,000 miles' trip in 1909, and several other equally
brilliant feats since that date. It is quite true that each
astounding achievement has been attended by an equally stupendous
accident, but that is accepted as a mere incidental detail by the
faithful Teutonic nation. Many vivid prophecies of the
forthcoming flights by Zeppelin have been uttered, and it is
quite probable that more than one will be fulfilled, but success
will be attributable rather to accident than design.
Although the Zeppelin is the main stake of the German people in
matters pertaining to aerial conquest, other types of airships
have not been ignored, as related in another chapter. They have
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Start in Life by Honore de Balzac: black.
The count wore a long blue overcoat, buttoned in military fashion to
the throat, a white cravat around his neck, cotton wool in his ears,
and a shirt-collar high enough to make a large square patch of white
on each cheek. His black trousers covered his boots, the toes of
which were barely seen. He wore no decoration in his button-hole, and
doeskin gloves concealed his hands. Nothing about him betrayed to the
eyes of youth a peer of France, and one of the most useful statesmen
in the kingdom.
Pere Leger had never seen the count, who, on his side, knew the former
only by name. When the count, as he got into the carriage, cast 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 Coxon Fund by Henry James: behaviour, as I caught gleams of it, ministered to the image that
had taken birth in my mind, to my private amusement, while that
other night I listened to George Gravener in the railway-carriage.
I watched her in the light of this queer possibility--a formidable
thing certainly to meet--and I was aware that it coloured,
extravagantly perhaps, my interpretation of her very looks and
tones. At Wimbledon for instance it had appeared to me she was
literally afraid of Saltram, in dread of a coercion that she had
begun already to feel. I had come up to town with her the next day
and had been convinced that, though deeply interested, she was
immensely on her guard. She would show as little as possible
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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: having been avoided.
Now let us turn to the results arrived at by the third most experienced
hybridiser, namely, the Hon. and Rev. W. Herbert. He is as emphatic in his
conclusion that some hybrids are perfectly fertile--as fertile as the pure
parent-species--as are Kolreuter and Gartner that some degree of sterility
between distinct species is a universal law of nature. He experimentised
on some of the very same species as did Gartner. The difference in their
results may, I think, be in part accounted for by Herbert's great
horticultural skill, and by his having hothouses at his command. Of his
many important statements I will here give only a single one as an example,
namely, that 'every ovule in a pod of Crinum capense fertilised by C.
On the Origin of Species |
