| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: Honor.
"Woe to a people made up of such men as these! For nations, like men,
owe all the strength and vitality that is in them to noble thoughts
and aspirations, and men's feelings shape their faith. But when self-
interest has taken the place of faith and each one of us thinks only
of himself, and believes in himself alone, how can you expect to find
among us much of that civil courage whose very essence consists in
self-renunciation? The same principle underlies both military and
civil courage, although you soldiers are called upon to yield your
lives up once and for all, while ours are given slowly drop by drop,
and the battle is the same for both, although it takes different
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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 Mansion by Henry van Dyke: him
to be with them.
There was quite an interval between the groups; and he followed
each of them with his eyes after it had passed, blanching the
long ribbon of the road for a little transient space, rising and
receding
across the wide, billowy upland, among the rounded hillocks of
aerial green and gold and lilac, until it came to the high
horizon,
and stood outlined for a moment, a tiny cloud of whiteness
against
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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 Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke: place where there was a clear spring and a fair large stone, upon
which each spread forth the gifts that he had received. And St.
Francis, seeing that the pieces of bread begged by Brother Maximus
were bigger and better than his own, rejoiced greatly, saying, 'Oh,
Brother Maximus, we are not worthy of so great a treasure.' As he
repeated these words many times, Brother Maximus made answer:
'Father, how can you talk of treasures when there is such great
poverty and such lack of all things needful? Here is neither napkin
nor knife, neither board nor trencher, neither house nor table,
neither man-servant nor maid-servant.' St. Francis replied: 'And
this is what I reckon a great treasure, where naught is made ready
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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 Parmenides by Plato: therefore one is neither other than other, nor the same with itself.
Neither will the one be like or unlike itself or other; for likeness is
sameness of affections, and the one and the same are different. And one
having any affection which is other than being one would be more than one.
The one, then, cannot have the same affection with and therefore cannot be
like itself or other; nor can the one have any other affection than its
own, that is, be unlike itself or any other, for this would imply that it
was more than one. The one, then, is neither like nor unlike itself or
other. This being the case, neither can the one be equal or unequal to
itself or other. For equality implies sameness of measure, as inequality
implies a greater or less number of measures. But the one, not having
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