| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Duchess of Padua by Oscar Wilde: But he died childless. Are you honest, boy?
Then be not spendthrift of your honesty,
But keep it to yourself; in Padua
Men think that honesty is ostentatious, so
It is not of the fashion. Look at these lords.
COUNT BARDI
[aside]
Here is some bitter arrow for us, sure.
DUKE
Why, every man among them has his price,
Although, to do them justice, some of them
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: your enemies,' it is not for the sake of the enemy, but for one's
own sake that he says so, and because love is more beautiful than
hate. In his own entreaty to the young man, 'Sell all that thou
hast and give to the poor,' it is not of the state of the poor that
he is thinking but of the soul of the young man, the soul that
wealth was marring. In his view of life he is one with the artist
who knows that by the inevitable law of self-perfection, the poet
must sing, and the sculptor think in bronze, and the painter make
the world a mirror for his moods, as surely and as certainly as the
hawthorn must blossom in spring, and the corn turn to gold at
harvest-time, and the moon in her ordered wanderings change from
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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 The Smalcald Articles by Dr. Martin Luther: But whenever the Law alone, without the Gospel being added
exercises this its office there is [nothing else than] death
and hell, and man must despair, like Saul and Judas; as St.
Paul, Rom. 7, 10, says: Through sin the Law killeth. On the
other hand, the Gospel brings consolation and remission not
only in one way, but through the word and Sacraments, and the
like, as we shall hear afterward in order that [thus] there is
with the Lord plenteous redemption, as Ps. 130, 7 says against
the dreadful captivity of sin.
However, we must now contrast the false repentance of the
sophists with true repentance, in order that both may be the
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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 Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne: team, they refused to move.
A few feet farther on, and the mass would pass behind
them! Michael saw the tarantass struck, his companion
crushed; he saw there was no time to drag her from the
vehicle.
Then, possessed in this hour of peril with superhuman
strength, he threw himself behind it, and planting his feet
on the ground, by main force placed it out of danger.
The enormous mass as it passed grazed his chest, taking
away his breath as though it had been a cannon-ball, then
crushing to powder the flints on the road, it bounded into the
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