| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: no other conception or sensation able to live for a moment in its
presence. How irrelevantly remote seem all our usual refined
optimisms and intellectual and moral consolations in presence of
a need of help like this! Here is the real core of the religious
problem: Help! help! No prophet can claim to bring a final
message unless he says things that will have a sound of reality
in the ears of victims such as these. But the deliverance must
come in as strong a form as the complaint, if it is to take
effect; and that seems a reason why the coarser religions,
revivalistic, orgiastic, with blood and miracles and supernatural
operations, may possibly never be displaced. Some constitutions
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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 Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: mind; I can hear the Voice of God speaking within me, and I can thank
you!"
She was shaking with the nervous trembling which from that hour never
left her. Her low, sweet tones were quite unlike the fevered accents
of the woman who was ready for dishonor to save her family. The blood
faded from her cheeks, her face was colorless, and her eyes were dry.
"And I played my part very badly, did I not?" she went on, looking at
Crevel with the sweetness that martyrs must have shown in their eyes
as they looked up at the Proconsul. "True love, the sacred love of a
devoted woman, gives other pleasures, no doubt, than those that are
bought in the open market!--But why so many words?" said she, suddenly
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