| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Pool in the Desert by Sara Jeanette Duncan: Its power of illumination was such that it tried my eyes. I closed
them to recall the outlines of the School of Art--it had been built
in a fit of economy--and the headings of the last Director's report,
which I had kindly sent after Armour to Calcutta. Perhaps that had
been the last straw.
The real meaning of the task of implanting Western ideals in the
Eastern mind rose before me when I thought of Armour's doing it--how
they would dwindle in the process, and how he must go on handling
them and looking at them withered and shrunken for twenty-odd years.
I understood--there was enough left in me to understand--Armour's
terrified escape. I was happy in the thought of him, sailing down
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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 Juana by Honore de Balzac: and pressing her to his heart, "yes. But let me speak to you as you
speak to God. Are you not as beautiful as Mary in heaven? Listen. I
swear to you," he continued, kissing her hair, "I swear to take that
forehead for my altar, to make you my idol, to lay at your feet all
the luxuries of the world. For you, my palace at Milan; for you my
horses, my jewels, the diamonds of my ancient family; for you, each
day, fresh jewels, a thousand pleasures, and all the joys of earth!"
"Yes," she said reflectively, "I would like that; but I feel within my
soul that I would like better than all the world my husband. Mio caro
sposo!" she said, as if it were impossible to give in any other
language the infinite tenderness, the loving elegance with which the
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