| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, etc. by Oscar Wilde: the mission in which he was engaged being one of great and grave
solemnity. He accordingly made out a list of his friends and
relatives on a sheet of notepaper, and after careful consideration,
decided in favour of Lady Clementina Beauchamp, a dear old lady who
lived in Curzon Street, and was his own second cousin by his
mother's side. He had always been very fond of Lady Clem, as every
one called her, and as he was very wealthy himself, having come
into all Lord Rugby's property when he came of age, there was no
possibility of his deriving any vulgar monetary advantage by her
death. In fact, the more he thought over the matter, the more she
seemed to him to be just the right person, and, feeling that any
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Coxon Fund by Henry James: fine gross easy senses, but it was not his good-natured appetite
that wrought confusion. If he had loved us for our dinners we
could have paid with our dinners, and it would have been a great
economy of finer matter. I make free in these connexions with the
plural possessive because if I was never able to do what the
Mulvilles did, and people with still bigger houses and simpler
charities, I met, first and last, every demand of reflexion, of
emotion--particularly perhaps those of gratitude and of resentment.
No one, I think, paid the tribute of giving him up so often, and if
it's rendering honour to borrow wisdom I've a right to talk of my
sacrifices. He yielded lessons as the sea yields fish--I lived for
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Dreams & Dust by Don Marquis: All ghosts of little children dead
That wander wistful, uncaressed,
Their seeking lips by love unfed,
She fain would cradle on her breast
For his sweet sake whose lonely head
Has never known that tender rest.
And thus she sits, and thus she broods,
Where drifted blossoms freak the grass;
The winds that move across her moods
Pulse with low whispers as they pass,
And in their eerier interludes
|
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 Tao Teh King by Lao-tze: remote. Having become remote, it returns. Therefore the Tao is
great; Heaven is great; Earth is great; and the (sage) king is also
great. In the universe there are four that are great, and the (sage)
king is one of them.
4. Man takes his law from the Earth; the Earth takes its law from
Heaven; Heaven takes its law from the Tao. The law of the Tao is its
being what it is.
26. 1. Gravity is the root of lightness; stillness, the ruler of
movement.
2. Therefore a wise prince, marching the whole day, does not go far
from his baggage waggons. Although he may have brilliant prospects to
|
