| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Essays of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: to in the pastoral uplands from which he came; and the concourse of
the streets was in his eyes only an extraordinary multiplication of
such 'meetings.'
And now we come to that last and most subtle quality of all, to that
sense of prospect, of outlook, that is brought so powerfully to our
minds by a road. In real nature, as well as in old landscapes,
beneath that impartial daylight in which a whole variegated plain is
plunged and saturated, the line of the road leads the eye forth with
the vague sense of desire up to the green limit of the horizon.
Travel is brought home to us, and we visit in spirit every grove and
hamlet that tempts us in the distance. SEHNSUCHT - the passion for
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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 Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: But it looks, I suppose, better than it smells--crack, crack--crack, crack-
-what a fuss thou makest!--as if it concerned the good people to be
informed, that a man with pale face and clad in black, had the honour to be
driven into Paris at nine o'clock at night, by a postillion in a tawny
yellow jerkin, turned up with red calamanco--crack, crack--crack, crack--
crack, crack,--I wish thy whip--
--But 'tis the spirit of thy nation; so crack--crack on.
Ha!--and no one gives the wall!--but in the School of Urbanity herself, if
the walls are besh..t--how can you do otherwise?
And prithee when do they light the lamps? What?--never in the summer
months!--Ho! 'tis the time of sallads.--O rare! sallad and soup--soup and
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