| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Shadow out of Time by H. P. Lovecraft: In the course of some months, however, the element of terror
did figure with accumulating force. This was when the dreams began
so unfailingly to have the aspect of memories, and when my mind
began to link them with my growing abstract disturbances - the
feeling of mnemonic restraint, the curious impressions regarding
time, and sense of a loathsome exchange with my secondary personality
of 1908-13, and, considerably later, the inexplicable loathing
of my own person.
As certain definite details began to enter
the dreams, their horror increased a thousandfold - until by October,
1915, I felt I must do something. It was then that I began an
Shadow out of Time |
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: of Wu summoned Sun Tzu, and asked him questions about the art of
war. Each time he set forth a chapter of his work, the King
could not find words enough to praise him." As he points out, if
the whole work was expounded on the same scale as in the above-
mentioned fragments, the total number of chapters could not fail
to be considerable. Then the numerous other treatises attributed
to Sun Tzu might be included. The fact that the HAN CHIH
mentions no work of Sun Tzu except the 82 P`IEN, whereas the Sui
and T`ang bibliographies give the titles of others in addition to
the "13 chapters," is good proof, Pi I-hsun thinks, that all of
these were contained in the 82 P`IEN. Without pinning our faith
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 Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: When old Herodotus tells me how, King Astyages having guarded the
frontier, Harpagus sent a hunter to young Cyrus with a fresh-killed
hare, telling him to open it in private; and how, sewn up in it was
the letter, telling him that the time to rebel was come, I am
inclined to say, That must be true. It is so beneath the dignity of
history, so quaint and unexpected, that it is all the more likely
NOT to have been invented.
So with that other story--How young Cyrus, giving out that his
grandfather had made him general of the Persians, summoned them all,
each man with a sickle in his hand, into a prairie full of thorns,
and bade them clear it in one day; and how when they, like loyal
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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 The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: the forge had been suffered to go out, and we were one and
all too weary to kindle another. We dined, or, not to take
that word in vain, we ate after a fashion, in the nightmare
disorder of the assayer's office, perched among boxes. A
single candle lighted us. It could scarce be called a
housewarming; for there was, of course, no fire, and with the
two open doors and the open window gaping on the night, like
breaches in a fortress, it began to grow rapidly chill. Talk
ceased; nobody moved but the unhappy Chuchu, still in quest
of sofa-cushions, who tumbled complainingly among the trunks.
It required a certain happiness of disposition to look
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