| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, etc. by Oscar Wilde: subject of the French plays. She spoke very little, always in the
same low musical voice, and seemed as if she was afraid of some one
listening. I fell passionately, stupidly in love, and the
indefinable atmosphere of mystery that surrounded her excited my
most ardent curiosity. When she was going away, which she did very
soon after dinner, I asked her if I might call and see her. She
hesitated for a moment, glanced round to see if any one was near
us, and then said, "Yes; to-morrow at a quarter to five." I begged
Madame de Rastail to tell me about her; but all that I could learn
was that she was a widow with a beautiful house in Park Lane, and
as some scientific bore began a dissertation on widows, as
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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 Charmides by Plato: repetitions. In such cases the genius of the English language requires
that the translation should be more intelligible than the Greek. The want
of more distinctions between the demonstrative pronouns is also greatly
felt. Two genitives dependent on one another, unless familiarised by
idiom, have an awkward effect in English. Frequently the noun has to take
the place of the pronoun. 'This' and 'that' are found repeating themselves
to weariness in the rough draft of a translation. As in the previous case,
while the feeling of the modern language is more opposed to tautology,
there is also a greater difficulty in avoiding it.
(5) Though no precise rule can be laid down about the repetition of words,
there seems to be a kind of impertinence in presenting to the reader the
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