| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Art of War by Sun Tzu: the struggle between Wu and Yueh. So much has been observed by
Pi I-hsun. But what has hitherto escaped notice is that they
also seriously impair the credibility of Ssu-ma Ch`ien's
narrative. As we have seen above, the first positive date given
in connection with Sun Wu is 512 B.C. He is then spoken of as a
general, acting as confidential adviser to Ho Lu, so that his
alleged introduction to that monarch had already taken place, and
of course the 13 chapters must have been written earlier still.
But at that time, and for several years after, down to the
capture of Ying in 506, Ch`u and not Yueh, was the great
hereditary enemy of Wu. The two states, Ch`u and Wu, had been
The Art of War |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Russia in 1919 by Arthur Ransome: opened I had a few words with Peters and with Krylenko.
The excitement of the internal struggle was over. It had
been bitterly fought within the party, and both Krylenko of
the Revolutionary Tribunal and Peters of the Extraordinary
Commission were there merely to witness the official act that
would define their new position. Peters talked of his failure
to get away for some shooting; Krylenko jeered at me
for having refused to believe in the Lockhart conspiracy.
Neither showed any traces of the bitter struggle waged
within the party for and against the almost dictatorial powers
of the Extraordinary Commission for dealing with counter-revolution.
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne: founded his hopes.
Reiset and Regnaut's apparatus worked with great regularity.
Not an atom of carbonic acid resisted the potash; and as to
the oxygen, Captain Nicholl said "it was of the first quality."
The little watery vapor enclosed in the projectile mixing with
the air tempered the dryness; and many apartments in London,
Paris, or New York, and many theaters, were certainly not in
such a healthy condition.
But that it might act with regularity, the apparatus must be
kept in perfect order; so each morning Michel visited the escape
regulators, tried the taps, and regulated the heat of the gas by
From the Earth to the Moon |
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 Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: made better way through the sea, seeing we had sea-room. When
the storm was over, we set fore-sail and main-sail, and brought
the ship to. Then we set the mizen, main-top-sail, and the
fore-top-sail. Our course was east-north-east, the wind was at
south-west. We got the starboard tacks aboard, we cast off our
weather-braces and lifts; we set in the lee-braces, and hauled
forward by the weather-bowlings, and hauled them tight, and
belayed them, and hauled over the mizen tack to windward, and
kept her full and by as near as she would lie.
During this storm, which was followed by a strong wind
west-south-west, we were carried, by my computation, about five
Gulliver's Travels |
