| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Book of Remarkable Criminals by H. B. Irving: furnace; those in the lavatory and the tea-chest he had concealed
there, until he should have had an opportunity of getting rid of
them.
In this statement Professor Webster denied all premeditation.
Dr. Putnam asked him solemnly whether he had not, immediately
before the crime, meditated at any time on the advantages that
would accrue to him from Parkman's death. Webster replied
"Never, before God!" He had, he protested, no idea of doing
Parkman an injury until the bitter tongue of the latter provoked
him. "I am irritable and violent," he said, "a quickness and
brief violence of temper has been the besetting sin of my life.
A Book of Remarkable Criminals |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from House of Mirth by Edith Wharton: matter of course, the likelihood of her distrusting him and
perhaps trying to cheat him of his share of the spoils. This
glimpse of his inner mind seemed to present the whole transaction
in a new aspect, and she saw that the essential baseness of the
act lay in its freedom from risk.
She drew back with a quick gesture of rejection, saying, in a
voice that was a surprise to her own ears: "You are
mistaken--quite mistaken--both in the facts and in what you infer
from them."
Rosedale stared a moment, puzzled by her sudden dash in a
direction so different from that toward which she had appeared to
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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 The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: counsellor of the Duke of Coburg Saalfeld, and his Jewish colleague
Hirschmann, with their Asiatic brethren and order named Ben Bicca,
Cabalistic and Talmudic; of the Illuminati, and poor Adam
Weisshaupt, Professor of Canon and National Law at Ingoldstadt in
Bavaria, who set up what he considered an Anti-Jesuitical order on a
Jesuit model, with some vague hope, according to his own showing, of
"perfecting the reasoning powers interesting to mankind, spreading
the knowledge of sentiments both humane and social, checking wicked
inclinations, standing up for oppressed and suffering virtue against
all wrong, promoting the advancement of men of merit, and in every
way facilitating the acquirement of knowledge and science;"--of this
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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 King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: Have fill'd their pockets full of pebble stones,
And banding themselves in contrary parts
Do pelt so fast at one another's pate
That many have their giddy brains knock'd out:
Our windows are broke down in every street,
And we for fear compell'd to shut our shops.
[Enter Serving-men, in skirmish, with bloody pates.]
KING.
We charge you, on allegiance to ourself,
To hold your slaughtering hands and keep the peace.
Pray, uncle Gloucester, mitigate this strife.
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