| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: highwayman of that same year. "He had been unwell," so ran
his humorous defence, "and the doctor told him to take
something, so he took the express-box."
The cultus of the stage-coachman always flourishes highest
where there are thieves on the road, and where the guard
travels armed, and the stage is not only a link between
country and city, and the vehicle of news, but has a faint
warfaring aroma, like a man who should be brother to a
soldier. California boasts her famous stage-drivers, and
among the famous Foss is not forgotten. Along the unfenced,
abominable mountain roads, he launches his team with small
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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 Lesson of the Master by Henry James: were St. George's the problem, presented by the ill-matched parts
of his genius would be still more difficult of solution. Besides,
the deportment of their proprietor was not, as regards the lady in
the red dress, such as could be natural, toward the wife of his
bosom, even to a writer accused by several critics of sacrificing
too much to manner. Lastly Paul Overt had a vague sense that if
the gentleman with the expressionless eyes bore the name that had
set his heart beating faster (he also had contradictory
conventional whiskers - the young admirer of the celebrity had
never in a mental vision seen HIS face in so vulgar a frame) he
would have given him a sign of recognition or of friendliness,
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