| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: him. If you do not want to ruin us all, my darling, and to see your
mother begging her bread like a pauper woman, you must tell her
everything----'
" 'Ah!' cried the Count. He had opened the door and stood there, a
sudden, half-naked apparition, almost as thin and fleshless as a
skeleton.
"His smothered cry produced a terrible effect upon the Countess; she
sat motionless, as if a sudden stupor had seized her. Her husband was
as white and wasted as if he had risen out of his grave.
" 'You have filled my life to the full with trouble, and now you are
trying to vex my deathbed, to warp my boy's mind, and make a depraved
Gobseck |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from An Open Letter on Translating by Dr. Martin Luther: questions such as these. So I ask all friends of the Truth to
seriously take this work to heart and faithfully pray to God for a
proper understanding of the divine Scriptures towards the
improvement and increase of our common Christendom. Amen.
Nuremberg Sept. 15, 1530.
To the Honorable and Worthy N., my favorite lord and friend.
Grace and peace in Christ, honorable, worthy and dear Lord and
friend. I received your writing with the two questions or queries
requesting my response. In the first place, you ask why I, in the
3rd chapter of Romans, translated the words of St. Paul:
"Arbitramur hominem iustificari ex fide absque operibus" as "We
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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 Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: hundred and twenty-three thousand gold kikars; those who had given
nothing lamented like the rest. The populace was jealous of the New
Carthaginians, to whom he had promised full rights of citizenship; and
even the Ligurians, who had fought with such intrepidity, were
confounded with the Barbarians and cursed like them; their race became
a crime, the proof of complicity. The traders on the threshold of
their shops, the workmen passing plumb-line in hand, the vendors of
pickle rinsing their baskets, the attendants in the vapour baths and
the retailers of hot drinks all discussed the operations of the
campaign. They would trace battle-plans with their fingers in the
dust, and there was not a sorry rascal to be found who could not have
Salammbo |
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 Betty Zane by Zane Grey: to see if they were pursued.
An hour of patient waiting, in which he never moved from his position, proved
the wisdom of his judgment. Suddenly, away at the other end of the grove, he
caught a flash of brown, of a living, moving something, like the flitting of a
bird behind a tree. Was it a bird or a squirrel? Then again he saw it, almost
lost in the shade of the forest. Several minutes passed, in which Wetzel never
moved and hardly breathed. The shadow had disappeared behind a tree. He fixed
his keen eyes on that tree and presently a dark object glided from it and
darted stealthily forward to another tree. One, two, three dark forms followed
the first one. They were Indian warriors, and they moved so quickly that only
the eyes of a woodsman like Wetzel could have discerned their movements at
Betty Zane |
