| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tao Teh King by Lao-tze: growth, are soft and brittle; at their death, dry and withered.
2. Thus it is that firmness and strength are the concomitants of
death; softness and weakness, the concomitants of life.
3. Hence he who (relies on) the strength of his forces does not
conquer; and a tree which is strong will fill the out-stretched arms,
(and thereby invites the feller.)
4. Therefore the place of what is firm and strong is below, and that
of what is soft and weak is above.
77. 1. May not the Way (or Tao) of Heaven be compared to the (method
of) bending a bow? The (part of the bow) which was high is brought
low, and what was low is raised up. (So Heaven) diminishes where
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Commission in Lunacy by Honore de Balzac: fashion. Rastignac was at her left hand on a low chair, in which he
looked settled like an Italian lady's "cousin." A third person was
standing by the corner of the chimney-piece. As the shrewd doctor had
suspected, the Marquise was a woman of a parched and wiry
constitution. But for her regimen her complexion must have taken the
ruddy tone that is produced by constant heat; but she added to the
effect of her acquired pallor by the strong colors of the stuffs she
hung her rooms with, or in which she dressed. Reddish-brown, marone,
bistre with a golden light in it, suited her to perfection. Her
boudoir, copied from that of a famous lady then at the height of
fashion in London, was in tan-colored velvet; but she had added
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