| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: it, and reverently bowing his head, the manager of the pension carried it
to the Baron.
Myself, I felt disappointed that there was not a salute of twenty-five
guns.
At the end of the meal we were served with coffee. I noticed the Baron
took three lumps of sugar, putting two in his cup and wrapping up the third
in a corner of his pocket-handkerchief. He was always the first to enter
the dining-room and the last to leave; and in a vacant chair beside him he
placed a little black leather bag.
In the afternoon, leaning from my window, I saw him pass down the street,
walking tremulously and carrying the bag. Each time he passed a lamp-post
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from An Episode Under the Terror by Honore de Balzac: regicides as Louis himself forgave them.
The Sisters saw two great tears trace a channel down the stranger's
manly checks and fall to the floor. Then the office for the dead was
recited; the Domine salvum fac regem chanted in an undertone that went
to the hearts of the faithful Royalists, for they thought how the
child-King for whom they were praying was even then a captive in the
hands of his enemies; and a shudder ran through the stranger, as he
thought that a new crime might be committed, and that he could not
choose but take his part in it.
The service came to an end. The priest made a sign to the sisters, and
they withdrew. As soon as he was left alone with the stranger, he went
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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 Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: with respect to the state?
Generally, we are under an impression that a man's duties are
public, and a woman's private. But this is not altogether so. A
man has a personal work or duty, relating to his own home, and a
public work or duty, which is the expansion of the other, relating
to the state. So a woman has a personal work or duty, relating to
her own home, and a public work or duty, which is also the expansion
of that.
Now the man's work for his own home is, as has been said, to secure
its maintenance, progress, and defence; the woman's to secure its
order, comfort, and loveliness.
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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 Disputation of the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences by Dr. Martin Luther: and the cross, death, and hell for the outward man.
59. St. Lawrence said that the treasures of the Church were
the Church's poor, but he spoke according to the usage of the
word in his own time.
60. Without rashness we say that the keys of the Church, given
by Christ's merit, are that treasure;
61. For it is clear that for the remission of penalties and of
reserved cases, the power of the pope is of itself sufficient.
62. The true treasure of the Church is the Most Holy Gospel of
the glory and the grace of God.
63. But this treasure is naturally most odious, for it makes
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