| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: VAILIMA, SAMOA, FEB. 1892.
MASTER, - A plea from a place so distant should have some weight,
and from a heart so grateful should have some address. I have been
long in your debt, Master, and I did not think it could be so much
increased as you have now increased it. I was long in your debt
and deep in your debt for many poems that I shall never forget, and
for SIGURD before all, and now you have plunged me beyond payment
by the Saga Library. And so now, true to human nature, being
plunged beyond payment, I come and bark at your heels.
For surely, Master, that tongue that we write, and that you have
illustrated so nobly, is yet alive. She has her rights and laws,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from God The Invisible King by H. G. Wells: Murray calls "instinct" is really not a vestige but a new thing
arising out of our increasing understanding, an intellectual
penetration to that greater being of the species, that vine, of
which we are the branches? Why should not the soul of the species,
many faceted indeed, be nevertheless a soul like our own?
Here, as in the case of Professor Metchnikoff, and in many other
cases of atheism, it seems to me that nothing but an inadequate
understanding of individuation bars the way to at least the
intellectual recognition of the true God.
6. RELIGION AS ETHICS
And while I am dealing with rationalists, let me note certain recent
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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 A Horse's Tale by Mark Twain: reached them, and therefore were not recognizable as terrors when
she got to them. Well, she is a daring little rider, now, and is
perfect in what she knows of horsemanship. By-and-by she will know
the art like a West Point cadet, and will exercise it as
fearlessly. She doesn't know anything about side-saddles. Does
that distress you? And she is a fine performer, without any saddle
at all. Does that discomfort you? Do not let it; she is not in
any danger, I give you my word.
You said that if my heart was old and tired she would refresh it,
and you said truly. I do not know how I got along without her,
before. I was a forlorn old tree, but now that this blossoming
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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 Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: successful and as his disobedience had helped to save the empire,
Yuan, so long as the Dowager remained in power, was safe.
But a day of reckoning must inevitably come. The Empress Dowager
was an old woman, the Emperor was a young man. In all human
probabilities she would be the first to die, while his only hope
was in her outliving the Emperor, who had sworn vengeance on all
those who had been instrumental in his imprisonment.
I have a friend in Peking who is also a friend of one of the
greatest Chinese officials. This official has gone into the
palace daily for a dozen years past and knows every plot and
counterplot that has been hatched in that nest of seclusion
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