The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: "That suits me," said the lunatic.
"It only costs a trifle,--eighty francs."
"That won't suit me," said the lunatic.
"Monsieur!" cried Gaudissart, "of course you have got grandchildren?
There's the 'Children's Journal'; that only costs seven francs a
year."
"Very good; take my wine, and I will subscribe to the children. That
suits me very well: a fine idea! intellectual product, child. That's
man living upon man, hein?"
"You've hit it, Monsieur," said Gaudissart.
"I've hit it!"
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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 An Open Letter on Translating by Dr. Martin Luther: know if one can say this word "liebe" in Latin or in other
languages with so much depth of emotion that it pierces the heart
and echoes throughout as it does in our tongue.
I think that St. Luke, as a master of the Hebrew and Greek
tongues, wanted to clarify and articulate the Greek word
"kecharitomene" that the angel used. And I think that the angel
Gabriel spoke with Mary just as he spoke with Daniel, when he
called him "Chamudoth" and "Ish chamudoth, vir desiriorum", that
is "Dear Daniel." That is the way Gabriel speaks, as we can see
in Daniel. Now if I were to literally translate the words of the
angel, and use the skills of these asses, I would have to
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