| 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: 'desperate ground' is like sitting in a leaking boat or crouching
in a burning house." Tu Mu quotes from Li Ching a vivid
description of the plight of an army thus entrapped: "Suppose an
army invading hostile territory without the aid of local guides:
-- it falls into a fatal snare and is at the enemy's mercy. A
ravine on the left, a mountain on the right, a pathway so
perilous that the horses have to be roped together and the
chariots carried in slings, no passage open in front, retreat cut
off behind, no choice but to proceed in single file. Then,
before there is time to range our soldiers in order of battle,
the enemy is overwhelming strength suddenly appears on the scene.
The Art of War |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Pupil by Henry James: deeper. When he tried to figure to himself the morning twilight of
childhood, so as to deal with it safely, he saw it was never fixed,
never arrested, that ignorance, at the instant he touched it, was
already flushing faintly into knowledge, that there was nothing
that at a given moment you could say an intelligent child didn't
know. It seemed to him that he himself knew too much to imagine
Morgan's simplicity and too little to disembroil his tangle.
The boy paid no heed to his last remark; he only went on: "I'd
have spoken to them about their idea, as I call it, long ago, if I
hadn't been sure what they'd say."
"And what would they say?"
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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 In the Cage by Henry James: and looked over it again; but she had a new, an obvious trouble,
and studied it without deciding and with much of the effect of
making our young woman watch her.
This personage, meanwhile, at the sight of her expression, had
decided on the spot. If she had always been sure they were in
danger her ladyship's expression was the best possible sign of it.
There was a word wrong, but she had lost the right one, and much
clearly depended on her finding it again. The girl, therefore,
sufficiently estimating the affluence of customers and the
distraction of Mr. Buckton and the counter-clerk, took the jump and
gave it. "Isn't it Cooper's?"
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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 Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche: this: the exception reversed itself to the rule in him.
The streak of chalk bewitcheth the hen; the stroke he struck bewitched his
weak reason. Madness AFTER the deed, I call this.
Hearken, ye judges! There is another madness besides, and it is BEFORE the
deed. Ah! ye have not gone deep enough into this soul!
Thus speaketh the red judge: "Why did this criminal commit murder? He
meant to rob." I tell you, however, that his soul wanted blood, not booty:
he thirsted for the happiness of the knife!
But his weak reason understood not this madness, and it persuaded him.
"What matter about blood!" it said; "wishest thou not, at least, to make
booty thereby? Or take revenge?"
Thus Spake Zarathustra |
