| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Beauty and The Beast by Bayard Taylor: mother is ailing most of the time, and I have not yet dared to tell
her all. I shall suffer great anxiety until I hear that the vessel
has sailed. My mistress is very good; she has given me an advance
on my wages, or I could not have sent thee any thing. Mother
thinks thou art still in Leipzig: why didst thou stay there so
long? but no difference; thy money would have gone anyhow."
It was nevertheless singular that Otto should be without money, so
soon after the appropriation of Count Kasincsky's funds. If the
"20" in the first memorandum on the leaf meant "twenty thousand
rubles," as I conjectured, and but four thousand two hundred were
drawn by the Count previous to his flight or imprisonment, Otto's
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Three Taverns by Edwin Arlington Robinson: His genius is a flame that he must hold
So far above the common heads of men
That they may view him only through the mist
Of their defect, and wonder what he is.
It seems to me the mystery that is in him
That makes him only more to me a man
Than any other I have ever known.
BURR
I grant you that his worship is a man.
I'm not so much at home with mysteries,
May be, as you -- so leave him with his fire:
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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 An Open Letter on Translating by Dr. Martin Luther: 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
hold that the human will be justified without the works of the law
but only by faith." You also tell me that the Papists are causing
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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 Enoch Arden, &c. by Alfred Tennyson: Till her people all around the royal chariot agitated,
Madly dash'd the darts together, writhing barbarous lineaments,
Made the noise of frosty woodlands, when they shiver in January,
Roar'd as when the rolling breakers boom and blanch on the precipices,
Yell'd as when the winds of winter tear an oak on a promontory.
So the silent colony hearing her tumultuous adversaries
Clash the darts and on the buckler beat with rapid unanimous hand,
Thought on all her evil tyrannies, all her pitiless avarice,
Till she felt the heart within her fall and flutter tremulously,
Then her pulses at the clamoring of her enemy fainted away.
Out of evil evil flourishes, out of tyranny tyranny buds.
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