| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: learn fine style and some austere thinking unconsciously. - Ever
your loving son,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO MR. AND MRS. THOMAS STEVENSON
LA SOLITUDE, HYERES-LES-PALMIERS, VAR, JANUARY 1 (1884).
MY DEAR PEOPLE, - A Good New Year to you. The year closes, leaving
me with 50 pounds in the bank, owing no man nothing, 100 pounds
more due to me in a week or so, and 150 pounds more in the course
of the month; and I can look back on a total receipt of 465 pounds,
0s. 6d. for the last twelve months!
And yet I am not happy!
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Critias by Plato: drawn by six winged horses, and touching the roof with his head; around him
were a hundred Nereids, riding on dolphins. Outside the temple were placed
golden statues of all the descendants of the ten kings and of their wives;
there was an altar too, and there were palaces, corresponding to the
greatness and glory both of the kingdom and of the temple.
Also there were fountains of hot and cold water, and suitable buildings
surrounding them, and trees, and there were baths both of the kings and of
private individuals, and separate baths for women, and also for cattle.
The water from the baths was carried to the grove of Poseidon, and by
aqueducts over the bridges to the outer circles. And there were temples in
the zones, and in the larger of the two there was a racecourse for horses,
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: thousand of his days old - say two million of our years - and he
had all the puppy airs that belong to that time of life - that
turning-point when a person has got over being a boy and yet ain't
quite a man exactly. If it had been anywhere else but in heaven, I
would have given him a piece of my mind. Well, anyway, Billings
had the grandest reception that has been seen in thousands of
centuries, and I think it will have a good effect. His name will
be carried pretty far, and it will make our system talked about,
and maybe our world, too, and raise us in the respect of the
general public of heaven. Why, look here - Shakespeare walked
backwards before that tailor from Tennessee, and scattered flowers
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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 At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: This picture was what moved the young man to mirth. But it must be
said that the wittiest of modern painters could not invent so comical
a caricature. The animal held in one of its forepaws a racket as big
as itself, and stood on its hind legs to aim at hitting an enormous
ball, returned by a man in a fine embroidered coat. Drawing, color,
and accessories, all were treated in such a way as to suggest that the
artist had meant to make game of the shop-owner and of the passing
observer. Time, while impairing this artless painting, had made it yet
more grotesque by introducing some uncertain features which must have
puzzled the conscientious idler. For instance, the cat's tail had been
eaten into in such a way that it might now have been taken for the
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