| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Open Letter on Translating by Dr. Martin Luther: acknowledge me as a workman with integrity. I do not care about
the papists, as they are not good enough to acknowledge my work
and, if they were to bless me, it would break my heart. I may be
insulted by their highest praise and honor, but I will still be a
doctor, even a distinguished one. I am certain that they shall
never take from me until the final day.
Yet I have not just gone ahead, ignoring the exact wording in the
original. Instead, with great care, I have, along with my
helpers, gone ahead and have kept literally to the original,
without the slightest deviation, wherever it appeared that a
passage was crucial. For instance, in John 6 Christ says: "Him
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Time Machine by H. G. Wells: as you know.
`Now, I still think that for this box of matches to have
escaped the wear of time for immemorial years was a most strange,
as for me it was a most fortunate thing. Yet, oddly enough, I
found a far unlikelier substance, and that was camphor. I found
it in a sealed jar, that by chance, I suppose, had been really
hermetically sealed. I fancied at first that it was paraffin
wax, and smashed the glass accordingly. But the odour of camphor
was unmistakable. In the universal decay this volatile substance
had chanced to survive, perhaps through many thousands of
centuries. It reminded me of a sepia painting I had once seen
The Time Machine |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from On Horsemanship by Xenophon: very apt to start and render the horse lame.
[12] i.e. "the metacarpals and metatarsals."
[13] Or, "and become varicose, with the result that the shanks swell
whilst the skin recedes from the bone."
[14] Or, "suspensory ligament"? Possibly Xenophon's anatomy is wrong,
and he mistook the back sinew for a bone like the fibula. The part
in question might intelligibly enough, if not technically, be
termed {perone}, being of the brooch-pin order.
If the young horse in walking bends his knees flexibly, you may safely
conjecture that when he comes to be ridden he will have flexible legs,
since the quality of suppleness invariably increases with age.[15]
On Horsemanship |
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 Fanny Herself by Edna Ferber: twisted loaf, with poppy seed freckling its braid, and its
sides glistening with the butter that had been liberally
swabbed on it before it had been thrust into the oven.
Fanny Brandeis gazed, hypnotized. As she gazed Bella
selected a plum tart and bit into it--bit generously, so
that her white little teeth met in the very middle of the
oozing red-brown juice and one heard a little squirt as they
closed on the luscious fruit. At the sound Fanny quivered
all through her plump and starved little body.
"Have one," said Bella generously. "Go on. Nobody'll ever
know. Anyway, we've fasted long enough for our age. I
Fanny Herself |
