| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Economist by Xenophon: certain conversations which he had once held with the
beautiful and good Ischomachus on the essentials of economy. It
was a tete-a-tete discussion, and in the original Greek the
remarks of the two speakers are denoted by such phrases as
{ephe o 'Iskhomakhos--ephen egio}--"said (he) Ischomachus,"
"said I" (Socrates). To save the repetition of expressions
tedious in English, I have, whenever it seemed help to do so,
ventured to throw parts of the reported conversations into
dramatic form, inserting "Isch." "Soc." in the customary way
to designate the speakers; but these, it must be borne in
mind, are merely "asides" to the reader, who will not forget
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: idiom, have an awkward effect in English. Frequently the noun has to take
the place of the pronoun. 'This' and 'that' are found repeating themselves
to weariness in the rough draft of a translation. As in the previous case,
while the feeling of the modern language is more opposed to tautology,
there is also a greater difficulty in avoiding it.
(5) Though no precise rule can be laid down about the repetition of words,
there seems to be a kind of impertinence in presenting to the reader the
same thought in the same words, repeated twice over in the same passage
without any new aspect or modification of it. And the evasion of
tautology--that is, the substitution of one word of precisely the same
meaning for another--is resented by us equally with the repetition of
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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 United States Declaration of Independence: The Declaration of Independence of The United States of America
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for
one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected
them with another, and to assume, among the Powers of the earth,
the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and
of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions
of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which
impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
United States Declaration of Independence |
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 Second Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's
assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces;
but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both
could not be answered--that of neither has been answered fully.
The Almighty has his own purposes. "Woe unto the world because
of offenses! for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe
to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose
that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the
providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued
through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he
gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the woe due
Second Inaugural Address |
