| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: at Ingouville the sea is like the same roofs stirred by the wind. This
eminence, or line of hills, which coasts the Seine from Rouen to the
seashore, leaving a margin of valley land more or less narrow between
itself and the river, and containing in its cities, its ravines, its
vales, its meadows, veritable treasures of the picturesque, became of
enormous value in and about Ingouville, after the year 1816, the
period at which the prosperity of Havre began. This township has
become since that time the Auteuil, the Ville-d'Avray, the
Montmorency, in short, the suburban residence of the merchants of
Havre. Here they build their houses on terraces around its ampitheatre
of hills, and breathe the sea air laden with the fragrance of their
Modeste Mignon |
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 An Open Letter on Translating by Dr. Martin Luther: New Testament into German to the best of my ability, and that I
have not forced anyone to read it. Rather I have left it open,
only doing the translation as a service to those who could not do
it as well. No one is forbidden to do it better. If someone does
not wish to read it, he can let it lie, for I do not ask anyone to
read it or praise anyone who does! It is my Testament and my
translation - and it shall remain mine. If I have made errors
within it (although I am not aware of any and would most certainly
be unwilling to intentionally mistranslate a single letter) I will
not allow the papists to judge for their ears continue to be too
long and their hee-haws too weak for them to be critical of my
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