| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Passionate Pilgrim by William Shakespeare: My heart doth charge the watch; the morning rise
Doth cite each moving sense from idle rest.
Not daring trust the office of mine eyes,
While Philomela sits and sings, I sit and mark,
And wish her lays were tuned like the lark;
For she doth welcome daylight with her ditty,
And drives away dark dismal-dreaming night:
The night so pack'd, I post unto my pretty;
Heart hath his hope, and eyes their wished sight;
Sorrow changed to solace, solace mix'd with sorrow;
For why, she sigh'd and bade me come tomorrow.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: England,--"perhaps we are to have a mask of allegorical figures.
Victory, with trophies from Lexington and Bunker Hill--Plenty,
with her overflowing horn, to typify the present abundance in
this good town--and Glory, with a wreath for his Excellency's
brow."
Sir William Howe smiled at words which he would have answered
with one of his darkest frowns had they been uttered by lips that
wore a beard. He was spared the necessity of a retort, by a
singular interruption. A sound of music was heard without the
house, as if proceeding from a full band of military instruments
stationed in the street, playing not such a festal strain as was
Twice Told Tales |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Faith of Men by Jack London: . He may have played with probability, and verged on the extremest
edge of possibility, but in his tales the machinery never creaked.
That he knew the Northland like a book, not a soul can deny. That
he was a great traveller, and had set foot on countless unknown
trails, many evidences affirm. Outside of my own personal
knowledge, I knew men that had met him everywhere, but principally
on the confines of Nowhere. There was Johnson, the ex-Hudson Bay
Company factor, who had housed him in a Labrador factory until his
dogs rested up a bit, and he was able to strike out again. There
was McMahon, agent for the Alaska Commercial Company, who had run
across him in Dutch Harbour, and later on, among the outlying
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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 Tao Teh King by Lao-tze: the wish to be getting. Therefore the sufficiency of contentment is
an enduring and unchanging sufficiency.
47. 1. Without going outside his door, one understands (all that takes
place) under the sky; without looking out from his window, one sees
the Tao of Heaven. The farther that one goes out (from himself), the
less he knows.
2. Therefore the sages got their knowledge without travelling; gave
their (right) names to things without seeing them; and accomplished
their ends without any purpose of doing so.
48. 1. He who devotes himself to learning (seeks) from day to day to
increase (his knowledge); he who devotes himself to the Tao (seeks)
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