| 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: he is distinguished; from self-boasting, and therefore his merit is
acknowledged; from self-complacency, and therefore he acquires
superiority. It is because he is thus free from striving that
therefore no one in the world is able to strive with him.
3. That saying of the ancients that 'the partial becomes complete' was
not vainly spoken:--all real completion is comprehended under it.
23. 1. Abstaining from speech marks him who is obeying the spontaneity
of his nature. A violent wind does not last for a whole morning; a
sudden rain does not last for the whole day. To whom is it that these
(two) things are owing? To Heaven and Earth. If Heaven and Earth
cannot make such (spasmodic) actings last long, how much less can man!
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: come from God!' and immediately its little voice would seem to have
reached so far, and to be echoing in his heart. But for these poor
rogues, the bank-robbers,--who, after all, are about as honest as
nine people in ten, except that they disregard certain formalities,
and prefer to transact business at midnight rather than 'Change-hours,
--and for these murderers, as you phrase it, who are often excusable
in the motives of their deed, and deserve to be ranked among public
benefactors, if we consider only its result,--for unfortunate
individuals like these, I really cannot applaud the enlistment of
an immaterial and miraculous power in the universal world-hunt
at their heels!"
House of Seven Gables |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Dynamiter by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson: It is probable he fainted.
When he came to himself, a constable had him by the arm.
'My God!' he cried.
'You seem to be unwell, sir,' said the hireling.
'I feel better now,' cried poor M'Guire: and with uneven
steps, for the pavement of the square seemed to lurch and
reel under his footing, he fled from the scene of this
disaster. Fled? Alas, from what was he fleeing? Did he not
carry that from which he fled along with him? and had he the
wings of the eagle, had he the swiftness of the ocean winds,
could he have been rapt into the uttermost quarters of the
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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 Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett: "They've gone together ever since they were boys, they know
most everything about the sea amon'st them," he told me once.
"They was always just as you see 'em now since the memory of man."
These ancient seafarers had houses and lands not outwardly
different from other Dunnet Landing dwellings, and two of them were
fathers of families, but their true dwelling places were the sea,
and the stony beach that edged its familiar shore, and the fish-
houses, where much salt brine from the mackerel kits had soaked the
very timbers into a state of brown permanence and petrifaction. It
had also affected the old fishermen's hard complexions, until one
fancied that when Death claimed them it could only be with the aid,
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