| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Twelve Stories and a Dream by H. G. Wells: her hand changed. So that what she said was disorderly and confused
for the most part; now a fragment of one soul's message, and now
a fragment of another's, and now she babbled the insane fancies
of the spirits of vain desire. Then Mr. Bessel understood that she
spoke for the spirit that had touch of her, and he began to struggle
very furiously towards her. But he was on the outside of the crowd
and at that time he could not reach her, and at last, growing anxious,
he went away to find what had happened meanwhile to his body. For a
long time he went to and fro seeking it in vain and fearing that it
must have been killed, and then he found it at the bottom of the shaft
in Baker Street, writhing furiously and cursing with pain. Its leg and
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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 Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter by Beatrix Potter: the night they were under the
kitchen floor. Benjamin was on his
back scratching upwards. Peter's
claws were worn down; he was
outside the tunnel, shuffling sand
away. He called out that it was
morning--sunrise; and that the
jays were making a noise down
below in the woods.
Benjamin Bunny came out of the
dark tunnel shaking the sand from
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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 Under the Red Robe by Stanley Weyman: I were for an hour or two this evening thrown together. I left
him at liberty to separate himself from me if he pleased, but he
did not use the opportunity. A kind of comradeship, rendered
piquant by our peculiar relations, had begun to spring up between
us. He seemed to take an odd pleasure in my company, more than
once rallied me on my post of jailor, would ask humorously if he
might do this or that; and once even inquired what I should do if
he broke his parole.
'Or take it this way,' he continued flippantly, 'Suppose I had
struck you in the back this evening in that cursed swamp by the
river, M. de Berault? What then! PARDIEU, I am astonished at
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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: can see that, in the assize cases, excluding the first period,
before the revision of 1832, whilst capital punishment shows a
certain diminution (especially due to the laws of 1832, 1848, &c.,
which reduced the number of cases involving the death penalty),
though continuing at a certain level since 1861, sentences of
penal servitude and solitary confinement show a con tinued
increase from the second period, and especially since 1851.
So also at the Tribunals, except for a few oscillations, as in the
ninth period, there is a sustained increase of repression.
And the fact that this increased ratio of the more serious
punishments actually indicates a greater severity on the part of
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