The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne: which formerly never pardoned, could not understand this
mode of governing. But he was silent, waiting until the
Czar should interrogate him further. The questions were
not long in coming.
"Did not Ivan Ogareff," asked the Czar, "return to
Russia a second time, after that journey through the
Siberian provinces, the object of which remains unknown?"
"He did."
"And have the police lost trace of him since?"
"No, sire; for an offender only becomes really dangerous
from the day he has received his pardon."
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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: The secondary differences of social condition, which may be
observed even amongst the members of a single family, rotting in
one of the slums of our great towns, or amongst those who are
surrounded by the temptations of money or power, or the like, are
clearly not enough in themselves to explain the vast differences
in the actions which grow out of them, varying from honesty under
the greatest discouragement to suicide and murder.
The question, therefore, must be asked in a relative sense
altogether, and we must inquire which of the three kinds of
natural causes of crime has a greater or less influence in
determining each particular crime at any given moment in the
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