| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: a person unknown to inquire.
The looking after my cargo of goods soon after obliged me to
take a journey to Bristol, and during my attendance upon that
affair I took the diversion of going to the Bath, for as I was
still far from being old, so my humour, which was always gay,
continued so to an extreme; and being now, as it were, a
woman of fortune though I was a woman without a fortune,
I expected something or other might happen in my way that
might mend my circumstances, as had been my case before.
The Bath is a place of gallantry enough; expensive, and full
of snares. I went thither, indeed, in the view of taking anything
Moll Flanders |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: and need not waste time explaining what I want done to somebody else.
It is dull work giving orders and trying to describe the bright
visions of one's brain to a person who has no visions and no brain,
and who thinks a yellow bed should be calceolarias edged with blue.
I have taken care in choosing my yellow plants to put down only
those humble ones that are easily pleased and grateful for little,
for my soil is by no means all that it might be, and to most
plants the climate is rather trying. I feel really grateful
to any flower that is sturdy and willing enough to flourish here.
Pansies seem to like the place and so do sweet-peas; pinks don't,
and after much coaxing gave hardly any flowers last summer.
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Art of War by Sun Tzu: was afterwards republished by Chi Hsieh of the same dynasty
together with those of Meng Shih and Tu Yu. It is of somewhat
scanty texture, and in point of quality, too, perhaps the least
valuable of the eleven.
8. MEI YAO-CH`EN (1002-1060), commonly known by his "style"
as Mei Sheng-yu, was, like Tu Mu, a poet of distinction. His
commentary was published with a laudatory preface by the great
Ou-yang Hsiu, from which we may cull the following: --
Later scholars have misread Sun Tzu, distorting his
words and trying to make them square with their own one-sided
views. Thus, though commentators have not been lacking, only
The Art of War |
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 Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: his friend? Yea--even for his DEAD friend, this Achilles, though
goddess-born, and goddess-taught, gives up his kingdom, his country,
and his life--casts alike the innocent and guilty, with himself,
into one gulf of slaughter, and dies at last by the hand of the
basest of his adversaries.
Is not this a mystery of life?
But what, then, is the message to us of our own poet, and searcher
of hearts, after fifteen hundred years of Christian faith have been
numbered over the graves of men? Are his words more cheerful than
the Heathen's--is his hope more near--his trust more sure--his
reading of fate more happy? Ah, no! He differs from the Heathen
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