| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Open Letter on Translating by Dr. Martin Luther: true Christians, along with Christ, their Lord, bless me.
Further, I am more than amply rewarded if just one Christian
acknowledge me as a workman with integrity. I do not care about
the papists, as they are not good enough to acknowledge my work
and, if they were to bless me, it would break my heart. I may be
insulted by their highest praise and honor, but I will still be a
doctor, even a distinguished one. I am certain that they shall
never take from me until the final day.
Yet I have not just gone ahead, ignoring the exact wording in the
original. Instead, with great care, I have, along with my
helpers, gone ahead and have kept literally to the original,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: at twenty-four hours' notice, with less thought than most men give
to the crossing of a street, had a moment--I won't say of hesitation,
but of startled pause, before this commonplace affair. The best
way I can explain it to you is by saying that, for a second or two,
I felt as though, instead of going to the centre of a continent,
I were about to set off for the centre of the earth.
"I left in a French steamer, and she called in every blamed
port they have out there, for, as far as I could see,
the sole purpose of landing soldiers and custom-house officers.
I watched the coast. Watching a coast as it slips by the ship
is like thinking about an enigma. There it is before you--
Heart of Darkness |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Hamlet by William Shakespeare: With all my imperfections on my head;
Oh horrible Oh horrible, most horrible:
If thou hast nature in thee beare it not;
Let not the Royall Bed of Denmarke be
A Couch for Luxury and damned Incest.
But howsoeuer thou pursuest this Act,
Taint not thy mind; nor let thy Soule contriue
Against thy Mother ought; leaue her to heauen,
And to those Thornes that in her bosome lodge,
To pricke and sting her. Fare thee well at once;
The Glow-worme showes the Matine to be neere,
Hamlet |
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 Fables by Robert Louis Stevenson: VII. - THE YELLOW PAINT.
IN a certain city there lived a physician who sold yellow paint.
This was of so singular a virtue that whoso was bedaubed with it
from head to heel was set free from the dangers of life, and the
bondage of sin, and the fear of death for ever. So the physician
said in his prospectus; and so said all the citizens in the city;
and there was nothing more urgent in men's hearts than to be
properly painted themselves, and nothing they took more delight in
than to see others painted. There was in the same city a young man
of a very good family but of a somewhat reckless life, who had
reached the age of manhood, and would have nothing to say to the
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