| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: whose interests he planted his poplars. When a man thinks without
annoyance about his heir, and watches the trees grow daily finer for
his future benefit, affection grows too with every blow of the spade
around her roots. Though this phenomenal feeling is not common, it is
still to be met with in Touraine.
This cherished nephew, named Octave de Camps, was a descendant of the
famous Abbe de Camps, so well known to bibliophiles and learned men,--
who, by the bye, are not at all the same thing. People in the
provinces have the bad habit of branding with a sort of decent
reprobation any young man who sells his inherited estates. This
antiquated prejudice has interfered very much with the stock-jobbing
|
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 Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: would give him some particular account of that land which we call
Europe, but especially of my own country.
CHAPTER V.
[The author at his master's command, informs him of the state of
England. The causes of war among the princes of Europe. The
author begins to explain the English constitution.]
The reader may please to observe, that the following extract of
many conversations I had with my master, contains a summary of
the most material points which were discoursed at several times
for above two years; his honour often desiring fuller
satisfaction, as I farther improved in the HOUYHNHNM tongue. I
Gulliver's Travels |
