| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Silas Marner by George Eliot: understood except by those who have undergone a bewildering
separation from a supremely loved object. In the evening twilight,
and later whenever the night was not dark, Silas looked out on that
narrow prospect round the Stone-pits, listening and gazing, not with
hope, but with mere yearning and unrest.
This morning he had been told by some of his neighbours that it was
New Year's Eve, and that he must sit up and hear the old year rung
out and the new rung in, because that was good luck, and might bring
his money back again. This was only a friendly Raveloe-way of
jesting with the half-crazy oddities of a miser, but it had perhaps
helped to throw Silas into a more than usually excited state. Since
Silas Marner |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from St. Ives by Robert Louis Stevenson: Sir Thomas: what would he do?'
'Well, I can tell you a story,' said I, 'a true one too, and about
this very combat of Chiclana, or Barossa as you call it. I was in
the Eighth of the Line; we lost the eagle of the First Battalion,
more betoken, but it cost you dear. Well, we had repulsed more
charges than I care to count, when your 87th Regiment came on at a
foot's pace, very slow but very steady; in front of them a mounted
officer, his hat in his hand, white-haired, and talking very
quietly to the battalions. Our Major, Vigo-Roussillon, set spurs
to his horse and galloped out to sabre him, but seeing him an old
man, very handsome, and as composed as if he were in a coffee-
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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 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: other, I had been sure to be undone.
In the meantime, as I was but too sure of the fact, I lived
therefore in open avowed incest and whoredom, and all under
the appearance of an honest wife; and though I was not much
touched with the crime of it, yet the action had something in
it shocking to nature, and made my husband, as he thought
himself, even nauseous to me.
However, upon the most sedate consideration, I resolved that
it was absolutely necessary to conceal it all and not make the
least discovery of it either to mother or husband; and thus I
lived with the greatest pressure imaginable for three years
Moll Flanders |
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 United States Bill of Rights: 1970's were produced in ALL CAPS, no lower case. The
computers we used then didn't have lower case at all.
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These original Project Gutenberg Etexts will be compiled into a file
containing them all, in order to improve the content ratios of Etext
to header material.
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The United States Bill of Rights.
The Ten Original Amendments to the Constitution of the United States
Passed by Congress September 25, 1789
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