| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Iron Puddler by James J. Davis: part of your education as to know how to sandpaper a floor and
varnish it. We could hire this work done better than you can do
it, but that wouldn't be giving you a chance to learn the work.
Now I'm not telling you boys to go back and do the work if you
don't want to. Use your own judgment. But fellows that balk on a
job never go far. A balky man is like a balky horse, everybody
gets rid of him as quickly as they can. A quitter is never given
a good job. They always keep him in a place where it doesn't make
any difference whether he quits or not."
The leader of the boys said: "Aw, piffle, cut it out. We might
as well be scrubbing the floor as listening to this talk. Come
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tao Teh King by Lao-tze: them.
2. There is an originating and all-comprehending (principle) in my
words, and an authoritative law for the things (which I enforce). It
is because they do not know these, that men do not know me.
3. They who know me are few, and I am on that account (the more) to be
prized. It is thus that the sage wears (a poor garb of) hair cloth,
while he carries his (signet of) jade in his bosom.
71. 1. To know and yet (think) we do not know is the highest
(attainment); not to know (and yet think) we do know is a disease.
2. It is simply by being pained at (the thought of) having this
disease that we are preserved from it. The sage has not the disease.
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from An Episode Under the Terror by Honore de Balzac: carry on the business of my little world? And in so doing, am I
not bound to put on record the memory of the amiable and
intelligent man who, meeting the Scribe (another clerk-amateur) at
a ball, said, "Just give the office a turn; there is work for you
there, I assure you"? But do you need this public testimony to
feel assured of the affection of the writer?
DE BALZAC.
AN EPISODE UNDER THE TERROR
On the 22nd of January, 1793, towards eight o'clock in the evening, an
old lady came down the steep street that comes to an end opposite the
Church of Saint Laurent in the Faubourg Saint Martin. It had snowed so
|
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 Protagoras by Plato: now substitute the names of pleasure and pain for good and evil, and say,
not as before, that a man does what is evil knowingly, but that he does
what is painful knowingly, and because he is overcome by pleasure, which is
unworthy to overcome. What measure is there of the relations of pleasure
to pain other than excess and defect, which means that they become greater
and smaller, and more and fewer, and differ in degree? For if any one
says: 'Yes, Socrates, but immediate pleasure differs widely from future
pleasure and pain'--To that I should reply: And do they differ in anything
but in pleasure and pain? There can be no other measure of them. And do
you, like a skilful weigher, put into the balance the pleasures and the
pains, and their nearness and distance, and weigh them, and then say which
|
