| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: innumerable alterations have been made in the Text. There have been added
also, in the Third Edition, headings to the pages and a marginal analysis
to the text of each dialogue.
At the end of a long task, the translator may without impropriety point out
the difficulties which he has had to encounter. These have been far
greater than he would have anticipated; nor is he at all sanguine that he
has succeeded in overcoming them. Experience has made him feel that a
translation, like a picture, is dependent for its effect on very minute
touches; and that it is a work of infinite pains, to be returned to in many
moods and viewed in different lights.
I. An English translation ought to be idiomatic and interesting, not only
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Awakening & Selected Short Stories by Kate Chopin: had been given that day up at his father's house.
He was a sunny-faced youngster of ten. When he had emptied
his pockets, La Folle patted his round red cheek, wiped his soiled
hands on her apron, and smoothed his hair. Then she watched him
as, with his cakes in his hand, he crossed her strip of cotton back
of the cabin, and disappeared into the wood.
He had boasted of the things he was going to do with his gun
out there.
"You think they got plenty deer in the wood, La Folle?" he had
inquired, with the calculating air of an experienced hunter.
"Non, non!" the woman laughed. "Don't you look fo' no deer, Cheri.
Awakening & Selected Short Stories |
