| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: subject. After reading several books on anthropology, education,
and didactics, Alexey Alexandrovitch drew up a plan of education,
and engaging the best tutor in Petersburg to superintend it, he
set to work, and the subject continually absorbed him.
"Yes, but the heart. I see in him his father's heart, and with
such a heart a child cannot go far wrong," said Lidia Ivanovna
with enthusiasm.
"Yes, perhaps.... As for me, I do my duty. It's all I can do."
"You're coming to me," said Countess Lidia Ivanovna, after a
pause; "we have to speak of a subject painful for you. I would
give anything to have spared you certain memories, but others are
Anna Karenina |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Poems of Goethe, Bowring, Tr. by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: that great fidelity is even the most essential element of
success, whether in translating poetry or prose. It was therefore
very satisfactory to me to find that the principle laid down by
me to myself in translating Schiller met with the very general,
if not universal, approval of the reader. At the same time, I
have endeavoured to profit in the case of this, the younger born
of the two attempts made by me to transplant the muse of Germany
to the shores of Britain, by the criticisms, whether friendly or
hostile, that have been evoked or provoked by the appearance of
its elder brother.
As already mentioned, the latter contained the whole of the
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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 Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: might comfortably supply them for seven years; if I remember right,
the materials I carried for clothing them, with gloves, hats,
shoes, stockings, and all such things as they could want for
wearing, amounted to about two hundred pounds, including some beds,
bedding, and household stuff, particularly kitchen utensils, with
pots, kettles, pewter, brass, &c.; and near a hundred pounds more
in ironwork, nails, tools of every kind, staples, hooks, hinges,
and every necessary thing I could think of.
I carried also a hundred spare arms, muskets, and fusees; besides
some pistols, a considerable quantity of shot of all sizes, three
or four tons of lead, and two pieces of brass cannon; and, because
Robinson Crusoe |
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 The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas: let us wait until the clock strikes twelve, and we shall
see."
It was very easy for Cornelius to wait for twelve at midday,
as he was already waiting for nine at night.
It struck twelve, and there were heard on the staircase not
only the steps of Gryphus, but also those of three or four
soldiers, who were coming up with him.
The door opened. Gryphus entered, led his men in, and shut
the door after them.
"There, now search!"
They searched not only the pockets of Cornelius, but even
The Black Tulip |
