| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Ursula by Honore de Balzac: the purchase, and furnished the funds to pay off the mortgage due to
the doctor's estate. The deed of sale was immediately drawn up by
Dionis. Towards the end of June Bongrand brought the balance of the
purchase money to Madame de Portenduere, advising her to invest it in
the Funds, where, joined to Savinien's ten thousand, it would give
her, at five per cent, an income of six thousand francs. Thus, so far
from losing her resources, the old lady actually gained by the
transaction. But she did not leave Nemours. Minoret thought he had
been tricked,--as though Bongrand had had an idea that Ursula's
presence was intolerable to him; and he felt a keen resentment which
embittered his hatred to his victim. Then began a secret drama which
|
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 Cratylus by Plato: the other. (Compare W. Humboldt, 'Ueber die Verschiedenheit des
menschlichen Sprachbaues;' M. Muller, 'Lectures on the Science of
Language;' Steinthal, 'Einleitung in die Psychologie und
Sprachwissenschaft.'
...
It is more than sixteen years since the preceding remarks were written,
which with a few alterations have now been reprinted. During the interval
the progress of philology has been very great. More languages have been
compared; the inner structure of language has been laid bare; the relations
of sounds have been more accurately discriminated; the manner in which
dialects affect or are affected by the literary or principal form of a
|
