| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Critias by Plato: took a pleasure in deceiving the Greeks.' He never appears to suspect that
there is a greater deceiver or magician than the Egyptian priests, that is
to say, Plato himself, from the dominion of whose genius the critic and
natural philosopher of modern times are not wholly emancipated. Although
worthless in respect of any result which can be attained by them,
discussions like those of M. Martin (Timee) have an interest of their own,
and may be compared to the similar discussions regarding the Lost Tribes (2
Esdras), as showing how the chance word of some poet or philosopher has
given birth to endless religious or historical enquiries. (See
Introduction to the Timaeus.)
In contrasting the small Greek city numbering about twenty thousand
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: larger net, to make a more comprehensive synthesis, than any
or than all of them put together. In feeling after the
central type of man, he must embrace all eccentricities; his
cosmology must subsume all cosmologies, and the feelings that
gave birth to them; his statement of facts must include all
religion and all irreligion, Christ and Boodha, God and the
devil. The world as it is, and the whole world as it is,
physical, and spiritual, and historical, with its good and
bad, with its manifold inconsistencies, is what he wishes to
set forth, in strong, picturesque, and popular lineaments,
for the understanding of the average man. One of his
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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 A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: right foot and then his left one; but his mistress feared that such
feats would give him vertigo. He became ill and was unable to eat.
There was a small growth under his tongue like those chickens are
sometimes afflicted with. Felicite pulled it off with her nails and
cured him. One day, Paul was imprudent enough to blow the smoke of his
cigar in his face; another time, Madame Lormeau was teasing him with
the tip of her umbrella and he swallowed the tip. Finally he got lost.
She had put him on the grass to cool him and went away only for a
second; when she returned, she found no parrot! She hunted among the
bushes, on the bank of the river, and on the roofs, without paying any
attention to Madame Aubain who screamed at her: "Take care! you must
A Simple Soul |
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 Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: There is nothing in Mr. Cary's translation which can stand a
comparison with that. The eighteenth century could not translate
like that. For here at last we have a real reproduction of the
antique. In the Shakespearian ring of these lines we recognize
the authentic rendering of the tones of the only man since the
Christian era who could speak like Shakespeare.
In this way Mr. Longfellow's translation is, to an eminent
degree, realistic. It is a work conceived and executed in entire
accordance with the spirit of our time. Mr. Longfellow has set
about making a reconstructive translation, and he has succeeded
in the attempt. In view of what he has done, no one can ever wish
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
