The old man paused here on the road and gazed up into the sky. The sun was at its height and shining brightly. He begged the traveler for some bread and water from his provisions. The traveler agreed, and they stopped on the side of the road to share a meal.
Said the traveler, "If Courage is so weak on its own, why do the holy books say it can continue by itself?"
Said the old man, "Because it is partially true. A person with Courage can, for a time, continue down the road alone, struggling against adversity without any of the others. For a time."
"Without Hope, why should we continue? No matter what strength our Courage gives us, without a reason to continue we will sink to our knees and die."
"Without Wisdom, how will we know which road to walk? If we have Hope and Courage, but lack understanding, we will put our faith in the wrong thing, walk the wrong road with strength, and come to destruction."
"Without Intelligence, how will we survive the road we walk? If we have Wisdom to walk the right road, have Hope of arriving, and the Courage to walk, but lack the simple knowledge to not walk into mortal danger, then we will never the end of any road."
"So, Courage can continue alone for a short time, but it will never survive without the others. Either it will not continue to the end, or it will walk into destruction on the road, or it will find that it was on the wrong road all along."
Having said this, the old man broke branches from a large tree and began to fashion them into walking sticks with a knife from the traveler's provisions. For the traveler, he used a large, straight branch; for himself, a smaller, knobbed one. Once he was finished, the two of them continued on the road.
AN: Made it this far, have you? Impressive!