| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tao Teh King by Lao-tze: 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)
from day to day to diminish (his doing).
2. He diminishes it and again diminishes it, till he arrives at doing
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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 Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: father's consent. Meanwhile her suitor spared no pains to keep
himself before her, to remind her that he, too, was waiting and
would never give her up.
Doctor Lombard, who suspected the young man of trying to persuade
Sybilla to sell the picture, had forbidden the lovers to meet or
to correspond; they were thus driven to clandestine
communication, and had several times, the Count ingenuously
avowed, made use of the doctor's visitors as a means of
exchanging letters.
"And you told the visitors to ring twice?" Wyant interposed.
The young man extended his hands in a deprecating gesture. Could
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