| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass: the Methodist Episcopal church. Mr. Waugh was then stationed
over Wilk street church. I am careful to state these facts, that
the reader may be able to form an idea of the precise influences
which had to do with shaping and directing my mind.
In view of the cares and anxieties incident to the life she was
then leading, and, especially, in view of the separation from
religious associations to which she was subjected, my mistress
had, as I have before stated, become lukewarm, and needed to be
looked up by her leader. This brought Mr. Waugh to our house,
and gave me an opportunity to hear him exhort and pray. But my
chief instructor, in matters of religion, was Uncle Lawson. He
My Bondage and My Freedom |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: and so forth, with the result that your victim, bewildered by your
inconsistency, concludes that there is no use trying to please you,
and falls into an attitude of sulky resentment. Which is an
additional inducement to pack him off to school.
In school, he finds himself in a dual world, under two dispensations.
There is the world of the boys, where the point of honor is to be
untameable, always ready to fight, ruthless in taking the conceit out
of anyone who ventures to give himself airs of superior knowledge or
taste, and generally to take Lucifer for one's model. And there is
the world of the masters, the world of discipline, submission,
diligence, obedience, and continual and shameless assumption of moral
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: damsel hasteth to bring to pass all that we were unable to
accomplish! Hither! fall we now furiously upon him: for we
shall find none other season so favourable to perform the will of
him that sent us." Thus spake this crafty spirit to his hounds:
and straightway they lept on that soldier of Christ, disquieting
all the powers of his soul, inspiring him with vehement love for
the damsel, and kindling within him the fiercest fire of lust.
When Ioasaph saw that he was greatly inflamed, and was being led
captive into sin, and perceived that his thoughts about the
salvation of the damsel and her conversion to God had been set
like bait on hook to hide the deed which she purposed, and were
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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 Art of War by Sun Tzu: the following disposition by Yeh Shui-hsin: [17] --
It is stated in Ssu-ma Ch`ien's history that Sun Wu was
a native of the Ch`i State, and employed by Wu; and that in
the reign of Ho Lu he crushed Ch`u, entered Ying, and was a
great general. But in Tso's Commentary no Sun Wu appears at
all. It is true that Tso's Commentary need not contain
absolutely everything that other histories contain. But Tso
has not omitted to mention vulgar plebeians and hireling
ruffians such as Ying K`ao-shu, [18] Ts`ao Kuei, [19], Chu
Chih-wu and Chuan She-chu [20]. In the case of Sun Wu, whose
fame and achievements were so brilliant, the omission is much
The Art of War |
