| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke: place as that which belongs to it in nature. In fiction, for
example, and in the drama, and in music, I have some vague
misgivings that romantic love has come to hold a more prominent and
a more permanent position than it fills in real life.
This is dangerous ground to venture upon, even in the most modest
and deprecatory way. The man who expresses an opinion, or even a
doubt, on this subject, contrary to the ruling traditions, will have
a swarm of angry critics buzzing about him. He will be called a
heretic, a heathen, a cold-blooded freak of nature. As for the
woman who hesitates to subscribe all the thirty-nine articles of
romantic love, if such a one dares to put her reluctance into words,
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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 New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson: He does not hear, he will not look,
Nor yet be lured out of this book.
For long ago, the truth to say,
He has grown up and gone away;
And it is but a child of air
That lingers in the garden there.
FOR RICHMOND'S GARDEN WALL
WHEN Thomas set this tablet here,
Time laughed at the vain chanticleer;
And ere the moss had dimmed the stone,
Time had defaced that garrison.
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