| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Hated Son by Honore de Balzac: because each was the fruit of their long meditations. Incapable of
boldly looking forward, each beginning seemed to them an end. Though
absolutely free, they were imprisoned in their own simplicity, which
would have been disheartening had either given a meaning to their
confused desires. They were poets and poem both. Music, the most
sensual of arts for loving souls, was the interpreter of their ideas;
they took delight in repeating the same harmony, letting their passion
flow through those fine sheets of sound in which their souls could
vibrate without obstacle.
Many loves proceed through opposition; through struggles and
reconciliations, the vulgar struggle of mind and matter. But the first
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: draweth into sin: for, saith the Apostle, `Follow peace with all
men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.'
Consider the wheel of men's affairs, how it runneth round and
round, turning and whirling them now up, now down: and amid all
its sudden changes, keep thou unchanged a pious mind. To change
with every change of affairs betokeneth an unstable heart. But
be thou steadfast, wholly established upon that which is good.
Be not lifted and vainly puffed up because of temporal honour;
but, with purified reason, understand the nothingness of thine
own nature, and the span-length and swift flight of life here,
and death the yoke-fellow of the flesh. If thou consider these
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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 U. S. Project Trinity Report by Carl Maag and Steve Rohrer: throughout the United States.
In compiling information for this report, historians, health
physicists, radiation specialists, and information analysts canvassed
document repositories known to contain materials on atmospheric
nuclear weapons tests conducted in the southwestern United States.
These repositories included armed services libraries, Government
agency archives and libraries, Federal repositories, and libraries of
scientific and technical laboratories. Researchers examined
classified and unclassified documents containing information on the
participation of personnel from the MED, which supervised Project
TRINITY, and from the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (LASL), which
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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 Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: consequence, when books of devotion were once more in demand, Cointet
Brothers were the first in this lucrative field. They slandered David,
accusing him of Liberalism, Atheism, and what not. How, asked they,
could any one employ a man whose father had been a Septembrist, a
Bonapartist, and a drunkard to boot? The old man was sure to leave
plenty of gold pieces behind him. They themselves were poor men with
families to support, while David was a bachelor and could do as he
pleased; he would have plenty one of these days; he could afford to
take things easily; whereas . . . and so forth and so forth.
Such tales against David, once put into circulation, produced their
effect. The monopoly of the prefectorial and diocesan work passed
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