| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Padre Ignacio by Owen Wister: morning ride out from one mission and by evening of a day's fair journey
ride into the next. A lonely, rough, dangerous road, but lovely, too,
with a name like music--El Camino Real. Like music also were the names of
the missions--San Juan Capistrano, San Luis Rey de Francia, San Miguel,
Santa Ynes--their very list is a song.
So there, by-and-by, was our continent, with the locomotive whistling
from Savannah to Boston along its eastern edge, and on the western the
scattered chimes of Spain ringing among the unpeopIed mountains. Thus
grew the two sorts of civilization--not equally. We know what has
happened since. To-day the locomotive is whistling also from The Golden
Gate to San Diego; but still the old mission-road goes through the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: our journey, and came to Gorgora, where we found the fathers met,
and the Emperor with them.
Chapter XII
The author is sent into Tigre. Is in danger of being poisoned by
the breath of a serpent. Is stung by a serpent. Is almost killed
by eating anchoy. The people conspire against the missionaries, and
distress them.
My superiors intended to send me into the farthest parts of the
empire, but the Emperor over-ruled that design, and remanded me to
Tigre, where I had resided before. I passed in my journey by Ganete
Ilhos, a palace newly built, and made agreeable by beautiful
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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 Augsburg Confession by Philip Melanchthon: manifest injuries, and restrain men with the sword and bodily
punishments in order to preserve civil justice and peace.
Therefore the power of the Church and the civil power must not
be confounded. The power of the Church has its own commission
to teach the Gospel and to administer the Sacraments. Let it
not break into the office of another; Let it not transfer the
kingdoms of this world; let it not abrogate the laws of civil
rulers; let it not abolish lawful obedience; let it not
interfere with judgments concerning civil ordinances or
contracts; let it not prescribe laws to civil rulers
concerning the form of the Commonwealth. As Christ says, John
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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 Paz by Honore de Balzac: countess he had daily felt ineffable satisfactions in knowing himself
necessary to a household which, without his devotion to its interests,
would infallibly have gone to ruin. What fortune can bear the strain
of reckless prodigality? Clementine, brought up by a spendthrift
father, knew nothing of the management of a household which the women
of the present day, however rich or noble they are, are often
compelled to undertake themselves. How few, in these days, keep a
steward. Adam, on the other hand, son of one of the great Polish lords
who let themselves be preyed on by the Jews, and are wholly incapable
of managing even the wreck of their vast fortunes (for fortunes are
vast in Poland), was not of a nature to check his own fancies or those
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