| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: parents that it is their religious duty to be miserable. It, and the
Sermon on the Mount, and Machiavelli's Prince, and La Rochefoucauld's
maxims, and Hymns Ancient and Modern, and De Glanville's apologue, and
Dr. Watts's rhymes, and Nietzsche's Gay Science, and Ingersoll's
Mistakes of Moses, and the speeches and pamphlets of the people who
want us to make war on Germany, and the Noodle's Orations and articles
of our politicians and journalists, must all be tolerated not only
because any of them may for all we know be on the right track but
because it is in the conflict of opinion that we win knowledge and
wisdom. However terrible the wounds suffered in that conflict, they
are better than the barren peace of death that follows when all the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Reef by Edith Wharton: He seldom spoke of his life in Europe, and let drop but the
most incidental allusions to the friends, the tastes, the
pursuits which filled his cosmopolitan days; but in the
atmosphere of West Fifty-fifth Street he seemed the
embodiment of a storied past. He presented Miss Summers
with a prettily-bound anthology of the old French poets and,
when she showed a discriminating pleasure in the gift,
observed with his grave smile: "I didn't suppose I should
find any one here who would feel about these things as I
do." On another occasion he asked her acceptance of a half-
effaced eighteenth century pastel which he had surprisingly
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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 Several Works by Edgar Allan Poe: Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
"Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee--by these angels he hath sent thee
Respite--respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!--prophet still, if bird or devil!--
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted--
On this home by Horror haunted--tell me truly, I implore--
Is there--is there balm in Gilead?--tell me--tell me, I implore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
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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 The Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: sacristan, who took charge of the chapel, and asked him whether
the gentleman were a constant worshiper.
"For twenty years that I have been here," replied the man, "M.
Desplein has come four times a year to attend this mass. He
founded it."
"A mass founded by him!" said Bianchon, as he went away. "This is
as great a mystery as the Immaculate Conception--an article which
alone is enough to make a physician an unbeliever."
Some time elapsed before Doctor Bianchon, though so much his
friend, found an opportunity of speaking to Desplein of this
incident of his life. Though they met in consultation, or in
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