| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: highest to him who has or shares in it, and that he who loves the beautiful
is called a lover because he partakes of it. For, as has been already
said, every soul of man has in the way of nature beheld true being; this
was the condition of her passing into the form of man. But all souls do
not easily recall the things of the other world; they may have seen them
for a short time only, or they may have been unfortunate in their earthly
lot, and, having had their hearts turned to unrighteousness through some
corrupting influence, they may have lost the memory of the holy things
which once they saw. Few only retain an adequate remembrance of them; and
they, when they behold here any image of that other world, are rapt in
amazement; but they are ignorant of what this rapture means, because they
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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 Gentle Grafter by O. Henry: Scudder paid $2,000 for the one he has.'
"'Oh, well,' says I, 'this sounds like the purling of a rill to me. I
thought we came here to teach the millionaires business, instead of
learning art from 'em?'
"'Be patient,' says Andy, kindly. 'Maybe we will see a rift in the
smoke ere long.'
"All the next morning Andy was out. I didn't see him until about noon.
He came to the hotel and called me into his room across the hall. He
pulled a roundish bundle about as big as a goose egg out of his pocket
and unwrapped it. It was an ivory carving just as he had described the
millionaire's to me.
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