| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Father Damien by Robert Louis Stevenson: such as you, if your soul were enlightened, would envy on your
bended knees. It is the least defect of such a method of
portraiture that it makes the path easy for the devil's advocate,
and leaves the misuse of the slanderer a considerable field of
truth. For the truth that is suppressed by friends is the readiest
weapon of the enemy. The world, in your despite, may perhaps owe
you something, if your letter be the means of substituting once for
all a credible likeness for a wax abstraction. For, if that world
at all remember you, on the day when Damien of Molokai shall be
named a Saint, it will be in virtue of one work: your letter to the
Reverend H. B. Gage.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Heroes by Charles Kingsley: to the stone, 'I have rid the land of an enchantment: now I
will rid it of one more.'
And he came close to AEgeus, and drew from his bosom the
sword and the sandals, and said the words which his mother
bade him.
And AEgeus stepped back a pace, and looked at the lad till
his eyes grew dim; and then he cast himself on his neck and
wept, and Theseus wept on his neck, till they had no strength
left to weep more.
Then AEgeus turned to all the people, and cried, 'Behold my
son, children of Cecrops, a better man than his father was
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