| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: conservatives, could hardly be expected to approve of his
theories. Kang, however, was asked to embody his suggestions in a
memorial, was later given an audience with the Emperor, and
finally called into the palace to assist him in the reforms he
had already undertaken. And if Kang Yu-wei had been as great a
statesman as he was reformer, Kuang Hsu might never have been
deposed.
The crisis came during the summer of 1898. I had taken my family
to the seashore to spend our summer vacation. A young Chinese
scholar--a Hanlin--who had been studying in the university for
some years, and with whom I was translating a work on psychology,
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche: friend that thou showest thyself to him as thou art? But he wisheth thee
to the devil on that account!
He who maketh no secret of himself shocketh: so much reason have ye to
fear nakedness! Aye, if ye were Gods, ye could then be ashamed of
clothing!
Thou canst not adorn thyself fine enough for thy friend; for thou shalt be
unto him an arrow and a longing for the Superman.
Sawest thou ever thy friend asleep--to know how he looketh? What is
usually the countenance of thy friend? It is thine own countenance, in a
coarse and imperfect mirror.
Sawest thou ever thy friend asleep? Wert thou not dismayed at thy friend
Thus Spake Zarathustra |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson: entrance, struck in me what I can only, describe as a disgustful
curiosity) was dressed in a fashion that would have made an
ordinary person laughable; his clothes, that is to say, although
they were of rich and sober fabric, were enormously too large for
him in every measurement--the trousers hanging on his legs and
rolled up to keep them from the ground, the waist of the coat
below his haunches, and the collar sprawling wide upon his
shoulders. Strange to relate, this ludicrous accoutrement was far
from moving me to laughter. Rather, as there was something
abnormal and misbegotten in the very essence of the creature that
now faced me--something seizing, surprising and revolting--
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde |
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 Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin: parts of the island. Yet, like the horses, they are confine
within certain limits; for they have not crossed the centra
chain of hills, nor would they have extended even so far a
its base, if, as the Gauchos informed me, small colonies ha
not been carried there. I should not have supposed tha
these animals, natives of northern Africa, could have existe
in a climate so humid as this, and which enjoys so littl
sunshine that even wheat ripens only occasionally. It i
asserted that in Sweden, which any one would have though
a more favourable climate, the rabbit cannot live out o
doors. The first few pairs, moreover, had here to conten
The Voyage of the Beagle |
