| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy: animals for the excitement, the love of the thing. The idle, rich man
wanted some aim in life--he, and the few young bucks he enrolled under
his banner, had amused themselves for months in risking their lives
for the sake of an innocent few.
Perhaps he had meant to tell her when they were first married;
and then the story of the Marquis de St. Cyr had come to his ears, and
he had suddenly turned from her, thinking, no doubt, that she might
someday betray him and his comrades, who had sworn to follow him; and
so he had tricked her, as he tricked all others, whilst hundreds now
owed their lives to him, and many families owed him both life and
happiness.
The Scarlet Pimpernel |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: it seemed to me that he was rather calmer.
"When he said good-by, he even made some joke about his having
come to the wrong door.
"I certainly would never have imagined that he would go away
again that same night."
It was a grievous trial for Aunt Masha when the old confessor
Iosif, who was her spiritual director, forbade her to pray for her
dead brother because he had been excommunicated. She was too
broad-minded to be able to reconcile herself to the harsh
intolerance of the church, and for a time she was honestly
indignant. Another priest to whom she applied also refused her
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: Come out and climb the garden path, Luriana Lurilee.
The China rose is all abloom and buzzing with the yellow bee.
The words (she was looking at the window) sounded as if they were
floating like flowers on water out there, cut off from them all, as if
no one had said them, but they had come into existence of themselves.
And all the lives we ever lived and all the lives to be
Are full of trees and changing leaves.
She did not know what they meant, but, like music, the words seemed to
be spoken by her own voice, outside her self, saying quite easily and
naturally what had been in her mind the whole evening while she said
different things. She knew, without looking round, that every one at
To the Lighthouse |
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 Art of War by Sun Tzu: favor. This is followed by Ts`ao Kung's preface to his edition,
and the biography of Sun Tzu from the SHIH CHI, both translated
above. Then come, firstly, Cheng Yu-hsien's I SHUO, [39] with
author's preface, and next, a short miscellany of historical and
bibliographical information entitled SUN TZU HSU LU, compiled by
Pi I-hsun. As regards the body of the work, each separate
sentence is followed by a note on the text, if required, and then
by the various commentaries appertaining to it, arranged in
chronological order. These we shall now proceed to discuss
briefly, one by one.
The Commentators
The Art of War |
