| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Recruit by Honore de Balzac: hurriedly up and down.
"You have been very imprudent," said the merchant. "Why send Brigitte
to buy those provisions?"
"But he may arrive half-dead with hunger, exhausted, and--"
She could say no more.
"I am sure of my brother the mayor," said the old man. "I will see him
at once, and put him in your interests."
After talking with the mayor, the shrewd old man made visits on
various pretexts to the principal families of Carentan, to all of whom
he mentioned that Madame de Dey, in spite of her illness, would
receive her friends that evening. Matching his own craft against those
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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 Augsburg Confession by Philip Melanchthon: concerning meats, holy-days and grades, that is, orders of
ministers, etc. They that give this right to the bishops refer
to this testimony John 16, 12. 13: I have yet many things to
say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when He,
the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all
truth. They also refer to the example of the Apostles, who
commanded to abstain from blood and from things strangled,
Acts 15, 29. They refer to the Sabbath-day as having been
changed into the Lord's Day, contrary to the Decalog, as it
seems. Neither is there any example whereof they make more
than concerning the changing of the Sabbath-day. Great, say
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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 Concerning Christian Liberty by Martin Luther: He, though he went up and down with much and varied exertion, and
omitted nothing which could tend to restore the position of the
cause thrown into confusion by the rashness and pride of Cajetan,
had difficulty, even with the help of that very illustrious
prince the Elector Frederick, in at last bringing about more than
one familiar conference with me. In these I again yielded to your
great name, and was prepared to keep silence, and to accept as my
judge either the Archbishop of Treves, or the Bishop of Naumburg;
and thus it was done and concluded. While this was being done
with good hope of success, lo! that other and greater enemy of
yours, Eccius, rushed in with his Leipsic disputation, which he
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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 Eve and David by Honore de Balzac: Next day Lucien received a copy of the local paper. He turned pale
with pleasure when he saw his name at the head of one of the first
"leaders" in that highly respectable sheet, which like the provincial
academies that Voltaire compared to a well-bred miss, was never talked
about.
"Let Franche-Comte boast of giving the light to Victor Hugo, to
Charles Nodier, and Cuvier," ran the article, "Brittany of
producing a Chateaubriand and a Lammenais, Normandy of Casimir
Delavigne, and Touraine of the author of Eloa; Angoumois that gave
birth, in the days of Louis XIII., to our illustrious fellow-
countryman Guez, better known under the name of Balzac, our
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