| 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: pieces? This is not activa contritio or manufactured
repentance, but passiva contritio [torture of conscience],
true sorrow of heart, suffering and sensation of death.
This, then, is what it means to begin true repentance; and
here man must hear such a sentence as this: You are all of no
account, whether you be manifest sinners or saints [in your
own opinion]; you all must become different and do otherwise
than you now are and are doing [no matter what sort of people
you are], whether you are as great, wise, powerful, and holy
as you may. Here no one is [righteous, holy], godly, etc.
But to this office the New Testament immediately adds 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 Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland by Olive Schreiner: then he broke out pure unmitigated Exeter Hall! You never heard anything
like it! All men were brothers, and God loved a black man as well as a
white; Mashonas and Matabele were poor ignorant folk, and we had to take
care of them. And then he started out, that we ought to let this man go;
we ought to give him food for the road, and tell him to go back to his
people, and tell them we hadn't come to take their land but to teach them
and love them. 'It's hard to love a nigger, Captain, but we must try it;
we must try it!'--And every five minutes he'd break out with, 'And I think
this is a man I know, Captain; I'm not sure, but I think he comes from up
Lo Magundis way!'--as if any born devil cared whether a bloody nigger came
from Lo Magundis or anywhere else! I'm sure he said it fifteen times. And
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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 Edingburgh Picturesque Notes by Robert Louis Stevenson: moulded into innumerable glens and shelvings and
variegated with heather and fern. The air comes briskly
and sweetly off the hills, pure from the elevation and
rustically scented by the upland plants; and even at the
toll, you may hear the curlew calling on its mate. At
certain seasons, when the gulls desert their surfy
forelands, the birds of sea and mountain hunt and scream
together in the same field by Fairmilehead. The winged,
wild things intermix their wheelings, the sea-birds skim
the tree-tops and fish among the furrows of the plough.
These little craft of air are at home in all the world,
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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 Theaetetus by Plato: which alternative do you prefer?
THEAETETUS: It is hard to determine, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And yet the argument will scarcely admit of both. But, as we
are at our wits' end, suppose that we do a shameless thing?
THEAETETUS: What is it?
SOCRATES: Let us attempt to explain the verb 'to know.'
THEAETETUS: And why should that be shameless?
SOCRATES: You seem not to be aware that the whole of our discussion from
the very beginning has been a search after knowledge, of which we are
assumed not to know the nature.
THEAETETUS: Nay, but I am well aware.
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