| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: Sheer and bare it rose, unscalable barricade,
Beaten and blown against by the generous draught of the trade.
Dawn on its fluted brow painted rainbow light,
Close on its pinnacled crown trembled the stars at night.
Here and there in a cleft clustered contorted trees,
Or the silver beard of a stream hung and swung in the breeze.
High overhead, with a cry, the torrents leaped for the main,
And silently sprinkled below in thin perennial rain.
Dark in the staring noon, dark was Rua's ravine,
Damp and cold was the air, and the face of the cliffs was green.
Here, in the rocky pit, accursed already of old,
Ballads |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Art of War by Sun Tzu: 7. HEAVEN signifies night and day, cold and heat, times and
seasons.
[The commentators, I think, make an unnecessary mystery of
two words here. Meng Shih refers to "the hard and the soft,
waxing and waning" of Heaven. Wang Hsi, however, may be right in
saying that what is meant is "the general economy of Heaven,"
including the five elements, the four seasons, wind and clouds,
and other phenomena.]
8. EARTH comprises distances, great and small; danger and
security; open ground and narrow passes; the chances of life and
The Art of War |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: town only comes here now to be told what specialist to go to, and
you know it."
"I don't know anything of the sort."
"If you don't, it's because you won't face the facts." Dick
chuckled, and threw an arm over David's shoulder, "You old
hypocrite!" he said. "You're trying to get rid of me, for some
reason. Don't tell me you're going to get married !"
But David did not smile. Lucy, watching him from her post by the
window, saw his face and felt a spasm of fear. At the most, she
had feared a mental conflict in David. Now she saw that it might
be something infinitely worse, something impending and immediate.
The Breaking Point |
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 Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: never seen!" complained the boy.
"Oh, I'll bet you did! I bet you lapped up the malted milk like a reg'lar
little devil!"
Then, the boy having served as introduction, they ignored him and charged into
real talk. Only Paul, sitting by himself, reading at a serial story in a
newspaper, failed to join them and all but Babbitt regarded him as a snob, an
eccentric, a person of no spirit.
Which of them said which has never been determined, and does not matter, since
they all had the same ideas and expressed them always with the same ponderous
and brassy assurance. If it was not Babbitt who was delivering any given
verdict, at least he was beaming on the chancellor who did deliver it.
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