| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Criminal Sociology by Enrico Ferri: description of occasional criminals are lacking in force. He
says, as Benedikt said at the Congress at Rome, that all criminals
are criminals by birth, so that there is no such thing as an
occasional criminal, in the sense of a _*normal_ individual
casually launched into crime. But I have not, any more than
Garofalo, drawn such a picture of the occasional criminal, for as
a matter of fact I have said precisely the opposite, as indeed
Lombroso himself acknowledges a little further on (ii. 422),
namely, that between the born and the occasional criminal
there is only a difference of degree and modality, as in all the
criminal classes.
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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 Copy-Cat & Other Stories by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: "Imogen is calling him back," she thought.
Annie was out of the room, and, slipping softly
down-stairs and out into the yard, crouched close
to the fence overgrown with sweetbrier, its founda-
tion hidden in the mallow, and there she listened.
She wanted to know what Imogen and her other
sisters were about to say to Tom Reed, and she
meant to know. She heard every word. The dis-
tance was not great, and her sisters' voices carried
far, in spite of their honeyed tones and efforts tow-
ard secrecy. By the time Tom had reached the
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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 Essays of Francis Bacon by Francis Bacon: is, that a man should have, as Consalvo was wont
to say, telam honoris crassiorem. But in all refrain-
ings of anger, it is the best remedy to win time;
and to make a man's self believe, that the oppor-
tunity of his revenge is not yet come, but that he
foresees a time for it; and so to still himself in the
meantime, and reserve it.
To contain anger from mischief, though it take
hold of a man, there be two things, whereof you
must have special caution. The one, of extreme bit-
terness of words, especially if they be aculeate and
Essays of Francis Bacon |
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 Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: Nanon will bring you bread and water. You hear me--go!"
Eugenie burst into tears and fled up to her mother. Grandet, after
marching two or three times round the garden in the snow without
heeding the cold, suddenly suspected that his daughter had gone to her
mother; only too happy to find her disobedient to his orders, he
climbed the stairs with the agility of a cat and appeared in Madame
Grandet's room just as she was stroking Eugenie's hair, while the
girl's face was hidden in her motherly bosom.
"Be comforted, my poor child," she was saying; "your father will get
over it."
"She has no father!" said the old man. "Can it be you and I, Madame
Eugenie Grandet |
