| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Footnote to History by Robert Louis Stevenson: hangers-on of any island beach. And the sailors are sometimes in
considerable force; but not the residents. He will think at times
there are more signboards than men to own them. It may chance it
is a full day in the harbour; he will then have seen all manner of
ships, from men-of-war and deep-sea packets to the labour vessels
of the German firm and the cockboat island schooner; and if he be
of an arithmetical turn, he may calculate that there are more
whites afloat in Apia bay than whites ashore in the whole
Archipelago. On the other hand, he will have encountered all ranks
of natives, chiefs and pastors in their scrupulous white clothes;
perhaps the king himself, attended by guards in uniform; smiling
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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 Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson: looking till my head ached for any possible means of separation. Here
were the means come to me upon two legs, and joy was the hindmost of my
thoughts. It is to be considered, however, that even if the weight of
the future were lifted off me by the man's arrival, the present heaved
up the more black and menacing; so that, as I first stood before him in
my shirt and breeches, I believe I took a leaping step backward like a
person shot.
"Ah," said he, "I have found you, Mr, Balfour." And offered me his
large, fine hand, the which (recovering at the same time my post in the
doorway, as if with some thought of resistance) I took him by
doubtfully. "It is a remarkable circumstance how our affairs appear to
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