| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from King Lear by William Shakespeare: And found- dispatch. The noble Duke my master,
My worthy arch and patron, comes to-night.
By his authority I will proclaim it
That he which find, him shall deserve our thanks,
Bringing the murderous caitiff to the stake;
He that conceals him, death.
Edm. When I dissuaded him from his intent
And found him pight to do it, with curst speech
I threaten'd to discover him. He replied,
'Thou unpossessing bastard, dost thou think,
If I would stand against thee, would the reposal
King Lear |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from 'Twixt Land & Sea by Joseph Conrad: with my conduct.
And I must say also that Mr. Burns' intolerable fussing with those
potatoes was not calculated to make me forget the part which I had
played. He looked upon it as a purely commercial transaction of a
particularly foolish kind, and his devotion - if it was devotion
and not mere cussedness as I came to regard it before long -
inspired him with a zeal to minimise my loss as much as possible.
Oh, yes! He took care of those infamous potatoes with a vengeance,
as the saying goes.
Everlastingly, there was a tackle over the after-hatch and
everlastingly the watch on deck were pulling up, spreading out,
'Twixt Land & Sea |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Art of War by Sun Tzu: defeat the many and the strong," such as "the neck of a pass,"
instanced by Li Ch`uan. Thus, Thermopylae was of this
classification because the possession of it, even for a few days
only, meant holding the entire invading army in check and thus
gaining invaluable time. Cf. Wu Tzu, ch. V. ad init.: "For
those who have to fight in the ratio of one to ten, there is
nothing better than a narrow pass." When Lu Kuang was returning
from his triumphant expedition to Turkestan in 385 A.D., and had
got as far as I-ho, laden with spoils, Liang Hsi, administrator
of Liang-chou, taking advantage of the death of Fu Chien, King of
Ch`in, plotted against him and was for barring his way into the
The Art of War |
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 Troll Garden and Selected Stories by Willa Cather: employed with the engravers who were to reproduce such of
Treffinger's pictures as he intended to use as illustrations.
He returned to his hotel late one evening after a long
and vexing day at the engravers to find James in his room, seated
on his steamer trunk by the window, with the outline of a great
square draped in sheets resting against his knee.
"Why, James, what's up?" he cried in astonishment, glancing
inquiringly at the sheeted object.
"Ayn't you seen the pypers, sir?" jerked out the man.
"No, now I think of it, I haven't even looked at a paper. I've
been at the engravers' plant all day. I haven't seen anything."
The Troll Garden and Selected Stories |
