| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Son of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: Malbihn was an excellent shot. His misses at so short a distance
were practically non-existent, nor would he have missed this time
but for an accident occurring at the very instant that his finger
tightened upon the trigger--an accident to which Meriem owed her
life--the providential presence of a water-logged tree trunk, one
end of which was embedded in the mud of the river bottom and the
other end of which floated just beneath the surface where the prow
of Malbihn's canoe ran upon it as he fired. The slight deviation
of the boat's direction was sufficient to throw the muzzle of the
rifle out of aim. The bullet whizzed harmlessly by Meriem's head
and an instant later she had disappeared into the foliage of the tree.
The Son of Tarzan |
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 Art of War by Sun Tzu: stuff for lighting fires."]
3. There is a proper season for making attacks with fire,
and special days for starting a conflagration.
4. The proper season is when the weather is very dry; the
special days are those when the moon is in the constellations of
the Sieve, the Wall, the Wing or the Cross-bar;
[These are, respectively, the 7th, 14th, 27th, and 28th of
the Twenty-eight Stellar Mansions, corresponding roughly to
Sagittarius, Pegasus, Crater and Corvus.]
for these four are all days of rising wind.
5. In attacking with fire, one should be prepared to meet
The Art of War |
