| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Open Letter on Translating by Dr. Martin Luther: gracious one". This way a German can at last think about what the
angel meant by his greeting. Yet the papists rant about me
corrupting the angelic greeting - and I still have not used the
most satisfactory German translation. What if I had used the most
satisfactory German and translated the salutation: "God says
hello, Mary dear" (for that is what the angel was intending to say
and what he would have said had he even been German!). If I had,
I believe that they would have hanged themselves out of their
great devotion to dear Mary and because I have destroyed the
greeting.
Yet why should I be concerned about their ranting and raving? I
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from God The Invisible King by H. G. Wells: their minds become, as it were, nascent and ready for the coming of
God.
Then suddenly, in a little while, in his own time, God comes. This
cardinal experience is an undoubting, immediate sense of God. It is
the attainment of an absolute certainty that one is not alone in
oneself. It is as if one was touched at every point by a being akin
to oneself, sympathetic, beyond measure wiser, steadfast and pure in
aim. It is completer and more intimate, but it is like standing
side by side with and touching someone that we love very dearly and
trust completely. It is as if this being bridged a thousand
misunderstandings and brought us into fellowship with a great
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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 Tapestried Chamber by Walter Scott: grave, and the soul restored from the penal fire, in order to
form for a space a union with the ancient accomplice of its
guilt. I started up in bed, and sat upright, supporting myself
on my palms, as I gazed on this horrible spectre. The hag made,
as it seemed, a single and swift stride to the bed where I lay,
and squatted herself down upon it, in precisely the same attitude
which I had assumed in the extremity of horror, advancing her
diabolical countenance within half a yard of mine, with a grin
which seemed to intimate the malice and the derision of an
incarnate fiend."
Here General Browne stopped, and wiped from his brow the cold
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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 Chronicles of the Canongate by Walter Scott: punctilious idea of their own gentility and consequence, they
usually behaved to each other and to the Lowlanders with a good
deal of formal politeness, which sometimes even procured them the
character of insincerity."
"Falsehood belongs to an early period of society, as well as the
deferential forms which we style politeness," I replied. "A
child does not see the least moral beauty in truth until he has
been flogged half a dozen times. It is so easy, and apparently
so natural, to deny what you cannot be easily convicted of, that
a savage as well as a child lies to excuse himself almost as
instinctively as he raises his hand to protect his head. The old
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