| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Criminal Sociology by Enrico Ferri: number in any particular physical and social environment. There
are crimes of piracy to this day, but the use of steam in
navigation has, none the less, been more effectual than all the
penal codes. Murders still occur, though very rarely, on the
railways; but it is none the less true that the substitution of
the railways and tramways for the old diligences and stage coaches
has decimated highway robberies, with or without murder. Divorce
does not eliminate wife-murder as a consequence of adultery, but
it diminishes its frequency. Similarly, after the protection
which is afforded to abandoned children, we shall not be able to
close the tribunals through the absence of crimes and offences,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Ebb-Tide by Stevenson & Osbourne: BEACH. Common calamity had brought them acquainted, as the
three most miserable English-speaking creatures in Tahiti; and
beyond their misery, they knew next to nothing of each other,
not even their true names. For each had made a long
apprenticeship in going downward; and each, at some stage of the
descent, had been shamed into the adoption of an alias. And yet
not one of them had figured in a court of justice; two were men
of kindly virtues; and one, as he sat and shivered under the
purao, had a tattered Virgil in his pocket.
Certainly, if money,could have been raised upon the book,
Robert Herrick would long ago have sacrificed that last
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| 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: your force will reach the goal.
[Literally, "the leader of the first division will be
TORN AWAY."]
10. If you march thirty LI with the same object, two-thirds
of your army will arrive.
[In the T`UNG TIEN is added: "From this we may know the
difficulty of maneuvering."]
11. We may take it then that an army without its baggage-
train is lost; without provisions it is lost; without bases of
supply it is lost.
[I think Sun Tzu meant "stores accumulated in depots." But
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 Mansion by Henry van Dyke: admirably
organized that the details of its direction took but little time.
But the scores of other interests that radiated from it and were
dependent upon it--or perhaps it would be more accurate to say,
that contributed to its solidity and success--the many
investments,
industrial, political, benevolent, reformatory, ecclesiastical,
that had made the name of Weightman well known and potent in
city,
church, and state, demanded much attention and careful steering,
in order that each might produce the desired result. There were
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