| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Euthyphro by Plato: attending to horses?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes.
SOCRATES: Nor is every one qualified to attend to dogs, but only the
huntsman?
EUTHYPHRO: True.
SOCRATES: And I should also conceive that the art of the huntsman is the
art of attending to dogs?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes.
SOCRATES: As the art of the oxherd is the art of attending to oxen?
EUTHYPHRO: Very true.
SOCRATES: In like manner holiness or piety is the art of attending to 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 The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by George Bernard Shaw: accomplish this: however cunningly Loki spreads it, the glint of
Freia's hair is still visible to Giant Fafnir, and the magic
helmet must go on the heap to shut it out. Even then Fafnir's
brother, Fasolt, can catch a beam from her eye through a chink,
and is rendered incapable thereby of forswearing her. There is
nothing to stop that chink but the ring; and Wotan is as greedily
bent on keeping that as Alberic himself was; nor can the other
gods persuade him that Freia is worth it, since for the highest
god, love is not the highest good, but only the universal delight
that bribes all living things to travail with renewed life. Life
itself, with its accomplished marvels and its infinite
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