| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: summary elliptic method as the book you have been reading and
admiring.' I was here brought up with a reflection
exceedingly just in itself, but which, as the sequel shows, I
failed to profit by. I saw that Marryat, not less than
Homer, Milton, and Virgil, profited by the choice of a
familiar and legendary subject; so that he prepared his
readers on the very title-page; and this set me cudgelling my
brains, if by any chance I could hit upon some similar belief
to be the centre-piece of my own meditated fiction. In the
course of this vain search there cropped up in my memory a
singular case of a buried and resuscitated fakir, which I had
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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 War and the Future by H. G. Wells: right term--on the cross of Arras cathedral, the British guns
search lovingly for the German batteries. As one walks about the
silent streets one hears, "/Bang/---Pheeee---woooo" and then far
away "/dump./" One of ours. Then presently back comes
"Pheeee---woooo---/Bang!/" One of theirs.
Amidst these pleasantries, the life of the town goes on. /Le
Lion d'Arras/, an excellent illustrated paper, produces its
valiant sheets, and has done so since the siege began.
The current number of /Le Lion d'Arras/ had to report a
local German success. Overnight they had killed a gendarme.
There is to be a public funeral and much ceremony. It is rare
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