| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: remorselessly beat the measure of life, made one think of the destruction
of the island and its engulfment in the sea, and warned her whose day had
slipped past in one quick doing after another that it was all ephermal as
a rainbow--this sound which had been obscured and concealed under the
other sounds suddenly thundered hollow in her ears and made her look up
with an impulse of terror.
They had ceased to talk; that was the explanation. Falling in one second
from the tension which had gripped her to the other extreme which, as if
to recoup her for her unnecessary expense of emotion, was cool, amused,
and even faintly malicious, she concluded that poor Charles Tansley had
been shed. That was of little account to her. If her husband required
To the Lighthouse |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Droll Stories, V. 1 by Honore de Balzac: archaeological value which it must always possess for the student, and
the dramatic interest of its stories, the translator has thought that
an English edition of Balzac's chef-d'oeuvre would be acceptable to
many. It has, of course, been impossible to reproduce in all its
vigour and freshness the language of the original. Many of the quips
and cranks and puns have been lost in the process of Anglicising.
These unavoidable blemishes apart, the writer ventures to hope that he
has treated this great masterpiece in a reverent spirit, touched it
with no sacrilegious hand, but, on the contrary, given as close a
translation as the dissimilarities of the two languages permit. With
this idea, no attempt had been made to polish or round many of the
Droll Stories, V. 1 |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: calc'lated. - The great maternal instinct came crowding up in her
soul just then, and her eyes wandered until they settled on her
daughter.
- No, poor, dear woman, - that could not have been. But I am
dropping one of my internal tears for you, with this pleasant smile
on my face all the time.
The great mystery of God's providence is the permitted crushing out
of flowering instincts. Life is maintained by the respiration of
oxygen and of sentiments. In the long catalogue of scientific
cruelties there is hardly anything quite so painful to think of as
that experiment of putting an animal under the bell of an air-pump
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
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 Father Sergius by Leo Tolstoy: Sergius was tired.
But Father Sergius, remembering the words of the Gospel: 'Forbid
them' (children) 'not to come unto me,' and feeling tenderly
towards himself at this recollection, said they should be allowed
to approach.
He rose, went to the railing beyond which the crowd had gathered,
and began blessing them and answering their questions, but in a
voice so weak that he was touched with pity for himself. Yet
despite his wish to receive them all he could not do it. Things
again grew dark before his eyes, and he staggered and grasped the
railings. He felt a rush of blood to his head and first went
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