| 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: 5, 6. The MORAL LAW causes the people to be in complete
accord with their ruler, so that they will follow him regardless
of their lives, undismayed by any danger.
[Tu Yu quotes Wang Tzu as saying: "Without constant
practice, the officers will be nervous and undecided when
mustering for battle; without constant practice, the general will
be wavering and irresolute when the crisis is at hand."]
7. HEAVEN signifies night and day, cold and heat, times and
seasons.
[The commentators, I think, make an unnecessary mystery of
The Art of War |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: berths, held out the tickets.
"Which will you have?" I asked. "Lower eleven or lower ten?"
"It makes no difference," she said. "Thank you very much indeed."
At random I gave her lower eleven, and called a porter to help her
with her luggage. I followed them leisurely to the train shed, and
ten minutes more saw us under way.
I looked into my car, but it presented the peculiarly unattractive
appearance common to sleepers. The berths were made up; the center
aisle was a path between walls of dingy, breeze-repelling curtains,
while the two seats at each end of the car were piled high with
suitcases and umbrellas. The perspiring porter was trying to be six
The Man in Lower Ten |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: After the fashion of woman directly she is not perfectly warm
and perfectly comfortable, I began to consider the uncertainty
of human life, and to shake my head in gloomy approval as
lugubrious lines of pessimistic poetry suggested themselves
to my mind.
Now it is clearly a desirable plan, if you want
to do anything, to do it in the way consecrated by custom,
more especially if you are a woman. The rattle of a carriage
along the road just behind me, and the fact that I started
and turned suddenly hot, drove this truth home to my soul.
The mist hid me, and the carriage, no doubt full of cousins,
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
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 Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: this matter which was so near my heart, and you may be very certain
it will be the fault of my health and not my inclination, if I do
not see you before very long; for all that has past has made me in
more than the official sense sincerely yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
SKERRYVORE, DEC. 14, 1886.
MY DEAR COLVIN, - This is first-rate of you, the Lord love you for
it! I am truly much obliged. He - my father - is very changeable;
at times, he seems only a slow quiet edition of himself; again, he
will be very heavy and blank; but never so violent as last spring;
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