| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Land of Footprints by Stewart Edward White: permanganate or carbolic. And those mild little remedies he uses
full strength!
The great and overwhelming advantage is of course with the
hunter. He possesses as deadly a weapon: and that weapon will
kill at a distance. This is proper, I think. There are more lions
than hunters; and, from our point of view, the man is more
important than the beast. The game is not too hazardous. By that
I mean that, barring sheer accident, a man is sure to come out
all right provided he does accurately the right thing. In other
words, it is a dangerous game of skill, but it does not possess
the blind danger of a forest in a hurricane, say. Furthermore, it
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie: unravelled from within." He tapped his forehead. "These little
grey cells. It is 'up to them'--as you say over here." Then,
suddenly, he asked: "Are you a judge of finger-marks, my friend?"
"No," I said, rather surprised, "I know that there are no two
finger-marks alike, but that's as far as my science goes."
"Exactly."
He unlocked a little drawer, and took out some photographs which
he laid on the table.
"I have numbered them, 1, 2, 3. Will you describe them to me?"
I studied the proofs attentively.
"All greatly magnified, I see. No. 1, I should say, are a man's
The Mysterious Affair at Styles |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte: twenty-three years ago.'
CHAPTER VIII
ON the morning of a fine June day my first bonny little nursling,
and the last of the ancient Earnshaw stock, was born. We were busy
with the hay in a far-away field, when the girl that usually
brought our breakfasts came running an hour too soon across the
meadow and up the lane, calling me as she ran.
'Oh, such a grand bairn!' she panted out. 'The finest lad that
ever breathed! But the doctor says missis must go: he says she's
been in a consumption these many months. I heard him tell Mr.
Hindley: and now she has nothing to keep her, and she'll be dead
Wuthering Heights |
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: Sebright expressly experimentised for this object, and failed. The
offspring from the first cross between two pure breeds is tolerably and
sometimes (as I have found with pigeons) extremely uniform, and everything
seems simple enough; but when these mongrels are crossed one with another
for several generations, hardly two of them will be alike, and then the
extreme difficulty, or rather utter hopelessness, of the task becomes
apparent. Certainly, a breed intermediate between two very distinct breeds
could not be got without extreme care and long-continued selection; nor can
I find a single case on record of a permanent race having been thus formed.
On the Breeds of the Domestic Pigeon. -- Believing that it is always best
to study some special group, I have, after deliberation, taken up domestic
On the Origin of Species |
