| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: fashion makes a sand-bag of the mother country, and hangs her
when occasion requires.
"The chain of fortresses" man, a fascinating talker, explained to
me after the affair that he was compelled to blow off steam.
Everybody expected it.
When we had chanted "The Star Spangled Banner" not more than
eight times, we adjourned. America is a very great country, but
it is not yet heaven, with electric lights and plush fittings, as
the speakers professed to believe. My listening mind went back
to the politicians in the saloon, who wasted no time in talking
about freedom, but quietly made arrangements to impose their will
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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 Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: seraglio, when it is filled only with women like these? Are they
exquisitely beautiful?"
"They do not," said Pekuah, "want that unaffecting and ignoble
beauty which may subsist without sprightliness or sublimity,
without energy of thought or dignity of virtue. But to a man like
the Arab such beauty was only a flower casually plucked and
carelessly thrown away. Whatever pleasures he might find among
them, they were not those of friendship or society. When they were
playing about him he looked on them with inattentive superiority;
when they vied for his regard he sometimes turned away disgusted.
As they had no knowledge, their talk could take nothing from the
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