| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tales of the Klondyke by Jack London: mine, and I want four more. I'll trade you my share in the camp
outfit and mining-gear for the dogs. And I'll throw in my six or
seven ounces and the spare 45-90 with the ammunition. What d'ye
say?"
The three men drew apart and conferred. When they returned,
Sigmund acted as spokesman. "We'll whack up fair with you,
Hitchcock. In everything you'll get your quarter-share, neither
more nor less; and you can take it or leave it. But we want the
dogs as bad as you do, so you get four, and that's all. If you
don't want to take your share of the outfit and gear, why, that's
your lookout. If you want it, you can have it; if you don't,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: amphibian half-way between a man and a woman--Maxime de Trailles is a
singular being, fit for anything, and good for nothing, quite as
capable of perpetrating a benefit as of planning a crime; sometimes
base, sometimes noble, more often bespattered with mire than
besprinkled with blood, knowing more of anxiety than of remorse, more
concerned with his digestion than with any mental process, shamming
passion, feeling nothing. Maxime de Trailles is a brilliant link
between the hulks and the best society; he belongs to the eminently
intelligent class from which a Mirabeau, or a Pitt, or a Richelieu
springs at times, though it is more wont to produce Counts of Horn,
Fouquier-Tinvilles, and Coignards."
Gobseck |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Rivers to the Sea by Sara Teasdale: The sunlight on the steeple,
The toys we stop to see,
The smiling passing people
Are all for you and me.
"I love you and I love you!"--
"And oh, I love you, too!"--
"All of the flower girl's lilies
Were only grown for you!"
Fifth Avenue and April
And love and lack of care--
The world is mad with music
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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 Criminal Sociology by Enrico Ferri: less direct and avowed influence of the new data on penal
legislation.
The legislators of to-day, vaguely impressed by statistical and
biological, ethnographical and anthropological data, and still
imbued with the old prejudice of social and political
artificiality, were at first hurried into a regular mania for
legislation, under which every newly observed social phenomenon
seemed to demand a special law, regulation, or article in the
penal code. Then, as Spencer has said in one of his most
brilliant essays, the citizen finds himself in an inextricable
network of laws, decrees, regulations and codes, which surround
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