| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from In the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson: about him in the darkness, his remorse was black.
'My God!' he reflected, 'if I was to lose my life on such a
wretched business!' Often and often, in the story of the Gilberts,
this scene has been repeated; and the remorseful trader sat beside
his lamp, longing for the day, listening with agony for the sound
of murder, registering resolutions for the future. For the
business is easy to begin, but hazardous to stop. The natives are
in their way a just and law-abiding people, mindful of their debts,
docile to the voice of their own institutions; when the tapu is re-
enforced they will cease drinking; but the white who seeks to
antedate the movement by refusing liquor does so at his peril.
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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 Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri: So much has our discourse my mind distressed."
We were aware that those beloved souls
Heard us depart; therefore, by keeping silent,
They made us of our pathway confident.
When we became alone by going onward,
Thunder, when it doth cleave the air, appeared
A voice, that counter to us came, exclaiming:
"Shall slay me whosoever findeth me!"
And fled as the reverberation dies
If suddenly the cloud asunder bursts.
As soon as hearing had a truce from this,
The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The King of the Golden River by John Ruskin: this time that the Guys, Scotch friends of his father and mother,
came for a visit to his home near London, and with them their
little daughter Euphemia. The coming of this beautiful,
vivacious, light-hearted child opened a new chapter in Ruskin's
life. Though but twelve years old, she sought to enliven the
melancholy student, absorbed in art and geology, and bade him
leave these and write for her a fairy tale. He accepted, and
after but two sittings, presented her with this charming story.
The incident proved to have awakened in him a greater interest
than at first appeared, for a few years later "Effie" Grey became
John Ruskin's wife. Meantime she had given the manuscript to a
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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 The Mayflower Compact: 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
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The Mayflower Compact
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