| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: another for the whim or folly of some king or minister, as they do
in Europe. Fraternity would come no more with the hands of Cain,
nor Liberty betray freedom with the kiss of Anarchy; for national
hatreds are always strongest where culture is lowest.
'How could I?' said Goethe, when reproached for not writing like
Korner against the French. 'How could I, to whom barbarism and
culture alone are of importance, hate a nation which is among the
most cultivated of the earth, a nation to which I owe a great part
of my own cultivation?'
Mighty empires, too, there must always be as long as personal
ambition and the spirit of the age are one, but art at least is the
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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 Edition of The Ambassadors by Henry James: extent; so that Strether after an instant himself took a hand.
"My absence of an assured future. The little I have to show toward
the power to take care of myself. The way, the wonderful way,
she would certainly take care of me. Her fortune, her kindness,
and the constant miracle of her having been disposed to go even so far.
Of course, of course"--he summed it up. "There are those sharp facts."
Chad had meanwhile thought of another still. "And don't you really
care--?"
His friend slowly turned round to him. "Will you go?"
"I'll go if you'll say you now consider I should. You know," he
went on, "I was ready six weeks ago."
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