| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: few, but the common property of the people. If the peaks of intellect
rise less eminent, the plateau of general elevation stands higher.
But little need be said to prove the civilization of a land where
ordinary tea-house girls are models of refinement, and common
coolies, when not at work, play chess for pastime.
If Japanese ways look odd at first sight, they but look more odd on
closer acquaintance. In a land where, to allow one's understanding
the freer play of indoor life, one begins, not by taking off his
hat, but by removing his boots, he gets at the very threshold a hint
that humanity is to be approached the wrong end to. When, after thus
entering a house, he tries next to gain admittance to the mind of
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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 Rewards and Fairies by Rudyard Kipling: French boarding-house on Fourth Street. I made out that his real
name was the Count Talleyrand de Perigord - a priest right
enough, but sorely come down in the world. He'd been King
Louis' Ambassador to England a year or two back, before the
French had cut off King Louis' head; and, by what I heard, that
head wasn't hardly more than hanging loose before he'd run back
to Paris and prevailed on Danton, the very man which did the
murder, to send him back to England again as Ambassador of the
French Republic! That was too much for the English, so they
kicked him out by Act of Parliament, and he'd fled to the
Americas without money or friends or prospects. I'm telling you
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