| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: this blade into your heart. Go! you would despise me. I have conceived
too great a respect for your character to abandon myself to you thus.
I do not choose to destroy the sentiment with which you honor me.'
" 'Ah!' said Sarrasine, 'to stimulate a passion is a poor way to
extinguish it! Are you already so corrupt that, being old in heart,
you act like a young prostitute who inflames the emotions in which she
trades?'
" 'Why, this is Friday,' she replied, alarmed by the Frenchman's
violence.
"Sarrasine, who was not piously inclined, began to laugh. La
Zambinella gave a bound like a young deer, and darted into the salon.
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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 Deserted Woman by Honore de Balzac: the mistress of the house? She had been anxious to display her wit. He
bowed stiffly to the Vicomtesse, and went away in desperation.
On the way home he tried to detect the real character of a creature
supple and hard as a steel spring; but he had seen her pass through so
many phases, that he could not make up his mind about her. The tones
of her voice, too, were ringing in his ears; her gestures, the little
movements of her head, and the varying expression of her eyes grew
more gracious in memory, more fascinating as he thought of them. The
Vicomtesse's beauty shone out again for him in the darkness; his
reviving impressions called up yet others, and he was enthralled anew
by womanly charm and wit, which at first he had not perceived. He fell
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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 Criminal Sociology by Enrico Ferri: view the jury was too much in accord with the general tendency of
the ideas of the day not to be greedily adopted. It was another
example of the close connection between philosophic ideas,
political institutions, and the judicial organisation.
The jury, transported to the Continent, in spite of the
improvements recorded by Bergasse in his report to the Constituent
Assembly, on August 14, 1789, was a mere counterfeit of that which
it was, and is, in England. But its political character is still
so attractive that it has many supporters to this day, though the
results of its employment in various countries are not very happy.
Yet, as the jury is a legal institution, we must consider its
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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 Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: the Eastern Baltic? It was absorbed and in most cases, I believe,
gradually and willingly, as a gospel and good news to hearts worn
out with the storm of their own passions. And whence came their
Christianity? Much of it, as in the case of the Danes, and still
more of the French Normans, came direct from Rome, the city which,
let them defy its influence as they would, was still the fount of
all theology, as well as of all civilisation. But I must believe
that much of it came from that mysterious ancient Western Church,
the Church of St. Patric, St. Bridget, St. Columba, which had
covered with rude cells and chapels the rocky islets of the North
Atlantic, even to Iceland itself. Even to Iceland; for when that
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