| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lady Susan by Jane Austen: XXXIX
LADY SUSAN TO MRS. JOHNSON
Upper Seymour Street.
My dear Alicia,--I yield to the necessity which parts us. Under
circumstances you could not act otherwise. Our friendship cannot be
impaired by it, and in happier times, when your situation is as independent
as mine, it will unite us again in the same intimacy as ever. For this I
shall impatiently wait, and meanwhile can safely assure you that I never
was more at ease, or better satisfied with myself and everything about me
than at the present hour. Your husband I abhor, Reginald I despise, and I
am secure of never seeing either again. Have I not reason to rejoice?
Lady Susan |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Criminal Sociology by Enrico Ferri: classification which I have proposed increases day by day.
Before inquiring how we can practically organise the positive
system of social defence on the basis of this anthropological
classification of criminals, we must bear in mind two rules,
common to all the technical proposals of the same system.
First, care must be taken that segregation does not become or
continue to be (as it is too often at present) a welcome refuge of
idleness and criminal association, instead of a deprivation.
Penitentiaries for condemned prisoners--the classical prison
experts make no distinction between their cells for prisoners
before trial and those for convicts!--should not be so comfortable
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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 Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin: and refused to look any longer.
When we try to perform some little action which is difficult
and requires precision, for instance, to thread a needle,
we generally close our lips firmly, for the sake, I presume,
of not disturbing our movements by breathing; and I noticed
the same action in a young Orang. The poor little creature
was sick, and was amusing itself by trying to kill the flies
on the window-panes with its knuckles; this was difficult
as the flies buzzed about, and at each attempt the lips were
firmly compressed, and at the same time slightly protruded.
[17] W. L. Martin, Nat. Hist. of Mamm. Animals, 1841, p. 405.
Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals |
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: "I have known for seven years that horseshoe nails are iron."
So this can be the answer to your first question. Please do not
give these asses any other answer to their useless braying about
that word "sola" than simply "Luther will have it so, and he says
that he is a doctor above all the papal doctors." Let it remain
at that. I will, from now on, hold them in contempt, and have
already held them in contempt, as long as they are the kind of
people that they are - asses, I should say. And there are brazen
idiots among them who have never learned their own art of
sophistry - like Dr. Schmidt and Snot-Nose, and such like them.
They set themselves against me in this matter, which not only
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