| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: some new book for His Majesty. They might be literary, scientific
or religious works, and he made no distinction between the books
of any sect or society, institution or body, but with an equal
zeal he sought them all. I was sometimes reduced to a sheet
tract, and finally I was forced to take my wife's Chinese medical
books out of her private library and send them in to the Emperor.
I learned that other eunuchs were visiting other persons in
charge of other books, and that at this time Kuang Hsu bought
every book that had been translated from any European language
and published in the Chinese.
One day the eunuch saw my wife's bicycle standing on the veranda
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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 Light of Western Stars by Zane Grey: huskily. "You could fall into worse company than mine--though I
reckon you sure think not. I'm pretty drunk, but I'm--all right
otherwise. Just wait--a minute."
She stood quivering and blazing with wrath, and watched this
savage fight his drunkenness. He acted like a man who had been
suddenly shocked into a rational state of mind, and he was now
battling with himself to hold on to it. Madeline saw the dark,
damp hair lift from his brows as he held it up to the cool wind.
Above him she saw the white stars in the deep-blue sky, and they
seemed as unreal to her as any other thing in this strange night.
They were cold, brilliant, aloof, distant; and looking at them,
The Light of Western Stars |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: sunk. A pity, now that he is done with suffering, a pity most
uncalled for, and an ignorant wonder. Before those who loved him,
his memory shines like a reproach; they honour him for silent
lessons; they cherish his example; and in what remains before them
of their toil, fear to be unworthy of the dead. For this proud man
was one of those who prospered in the valley of humiliation; - of
whom Bunyan wrote that, "Though Christian had the hard hap to meet
in the valley with Apollyon, yet I must tell you, that in former
times men have met with angels here; have found pearls here; and
have in this place found the words of life."
CHAPTER IV. A COLLEGE MAGAZINE
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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 Don Quixote by Miquel de Cervantes: of the many spears they held in front of him; and Don Quixote, turning
round at the cries of Sancho, for he knew by them that it was he,
saw him hanging from the oak head downwards, with Dapple, who did
not forsake him in his distress, close beside him; and Cide Hamete
observes that he seldom saw Sancho Panza without seeing Dapple, or
Dapple without seeing Sancho Panza; such was their attachment and
loyalty one to the other. Don Quixote went over and unhooked Sancho,
who, as soon as he found himself on the ground, looked at the rent
in his huntingcoat and was grieved to the heart, for he thought he had
got a patrimonial estate in that suit.
Meanwhile they had slung the mighty boar across the back of a
Don Quixote |
