| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Art of War by Sun Tzu: impassable for chariots and horsemen."]
and crevasses,
[Defined by Mei Yao-ch`en as "a narrow difficult way between
beetling cliffs." Tu Mu's note is "ground covered with trees and
rocks, and intersected by numerous ravines and pitfalls." This
is very vague, but Chia Lin explains it clearly enough as a
defile or narrow pass, and Chang Yu takes much the same view. On
the whole, the weight of the commentators certainly inclines to
the rendering "defile." But the ordinary meaning of the Chinese
in one place is "a crack or fissure" and the fact that the
meaning of the Chinese elsewhere in the sentence indicates
The Art of War |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte: had charge of his education. His minute portions of Latin grammar,
&c., were to be repeated over to him, till he chose to say he knew
them, and then he was to be helped to say them; if he made mistakes
in his little easy sums in arithmetic, they were to be shown him at
once, and the sum done for him, instead of his being left to
exercise his faculties in finding them out himself; so that, of
course, he took no pains to avoid mistakes, but frequently set down
his figures at random, without any calculation at all.
I did not invariably confine myself to these rules: it was against
my conscience to do so; but I seldom could venture to deviate from
them in the slightest degree, without incurring the wrath of my
Agnes Grey |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther: the Ten Commandments.
Here we could say much if we were to expatiate, how few there are that
believe this article. For we all pass over it, hear it and say it, but
neither see nor consider what the words teach us. For if we believed it
with the heart, we would also act accordingly, and not stalk about
proudly, act defiantly, and boast as though we had life, riches, power,
and honor, etc., of ourselves, so that others must fear and serve us,
as is the practice of the wretched, perverse world, which is drowned in
blindness, and abuses all the good things and gifts of God only for its
own pride, avarice, lust, and luxury, and never once regards God, so
as to thank Him or acknowledge Him as Lord and Creator.
|
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 Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: grow stale; and two servants could easily fill it in half an
hour. Here I often used to row for my own diversion, as well as
that of the queen and her ladies, who thought themselves well
entertained with my skill and agility. Sometimes I would put up
my sail, and then my business was only to steer, while the ladies
gave me a gale with their fans; and, when they were weary, some
of their pages would blow my sail forward with their breath,
while I showed my art by steering starboard or larboard as I
pleased. When I had done, Glumdalclitch always carried back my
boat into her closet, and hung it on a nail to dry.
In this exercise I once met an accident, which had like to have
Gulliver's Travels |
