| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tao Teh King by Lao-tze: first have made gifts to him:--this is called 'Hiding the light (of
his procedure).'
2. The soft overcomes the hard; and the weak the strong.
3. Fishes should not be taken from the deep; instruments for the
profit of a state should not be shown to the people.
37. 1. The Tao in its regular course does nothing (for the sake of
doing it), and so there is nothing which it does not do.
2. If princes and kings were able to maintain it, all things would of
themselves be transformed by them.
3. If this transformation became to me an object of desire, I would
express the desire by the nameless simplicity.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: with a light and dull sound, upon the sward. The noise was as of a
thin fall of great hailstones; but there went with it a cheerful
human sentiment of an approaching harvest and farmers rejoicing in
their gains. Looking up, I could see the brown nut peering through
the husk, which was already gaping; and between the stems the eye
embraced an amphitheatre of hill, sunlit and green with leaves.
I have not often enjoyed a place more deeply. I moved in an
atmosphere of pleasure, and felt light and quiet and content. But
perhaps it was not the place alone that so disposed my spirit.
Perhaps some one was thinking of me in another country; or perhaps
some thought of my own had come and gone unnoticed, and yet done me
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