| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Smalcald Articles by Dr. Martin Luther: must not take upon our conscience [with a good conscience
approve]. Let him, however, who will do it, do so without us
[at his own risk].
Hence it follows that all things which the Pope, from a power
so false, mischievous, blasphemous, and arrogant, has done and
undertaken. have been and still are purely diabolical affairs
and transactions (with the exception of such things as pertain
to the secular government, where God often permits much good
to be effected for a people, even through a tyrant and
[faithless] scoundrel) for the ruin of the entire holy
[catholic or] Christian Church (so far as it is in his power)
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: but the other and the healthier side of that sadness which they had
as heathens. Read which you will of the old sagas--heathen or half-
Christian--the Eyrbiggia, Viga Glum, Burnt Niall, Grettir the
Strong, and, above all, Snorri Sturluson's "Heimskringla" itself--
and you will see at once how sad they are. There is, in the old
sagas, none of that enjoyment of life which shines out everywhere in
Greek poetry, even through its deepest tragedies. Not in
complacency with Nature's beauty, but in the fierce struggle with
her wrath, does the Norseman feel pleasure. Nature to him was not,
as in Mr. Longfellow's exquisite poem, {3} the kind old nurse, to
take him on her knee and whisper to him, ever anew, the story
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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 Case of The Lamp That Went Out by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: answer.
"How close together?"
"Why - about once in every three or four months, I think."
"That looks almost like a regular income," exclaimed Riedau. His
eyes met Muller's, which were lit up in sudden fire. "Well, what
are you thinking of?" asked the commissioner.
"A woman," answered Muller; and continued more as if thinking
aloud than as if addressing the others: "Winkler was a good-looking
man. Might he not have had a rich love somewhere? Might not the
money have come from her, the money that was found in his pocket?"
Muller's voice trailed off into indistinctness at the last words,
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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 Ion by Plato: when, as in the Apology, he speaks of poets as the worst critics of their
own writings--anybody taken at random from the crowd is a better
interpreter of them than they are of themselves. They are sacred persons,
'winged and holy things' who have a touch of madness in their composition
(Phaedr.), and should be treated with every sort of respect (Republic), but
not allowed to live in a well-ordered state. Like the Statesmen in the
Meno, they have a divine instinct, but they are narrow and confused; they
do not attain to the clearness of ideas, or to the knowledge of poetry or
of any other art as a whole.
In the Protagoras the ancient poets are recognized by Protagoras himself as
the original sophists; and this family resemblance may be traced in the
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