| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: had betrayed or offended some one; but when they came to name
the object of his fear--the one whom he had displeased, and to
whom he should return--he heard nothing; there was a blur of
silence in their speech. The clock pointed to the hour, but the
bell did not strike. At last Hermas refused to see them any
more.
One day John the Presbyter stood in the atrium. Hermas
was entertaining Libanius and Athenais in the banquet-hall.
When the visit of the Presbyter was announced, the young
master loosed a collar of gold and jewels from his neck, and
gave it to his scribe.
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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 Father Damien by Robert Louis Stevenson: be infallible; to these the story will be painful; not to the true
lovers, patrons, and servants of mankind.
And I take it, this is a type of our division; that you are one of
those who have an eye for faults and failures; that you take a
pleasure to find and publish them; and that, having found them, you
make haste to forget the overvailing virtues and the real success
which had alone introduced them to your knowledge. It is a
dangerous frame of mind. That you may understand how dangerous,
and into what a situation it has already brought you, we will (if
you please) go hand-in-hand through the different phrases of your
letter, and candidly examine each from the point of view of its
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