| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Crito by Plato: here in this city you begat your children, which is a proof of your
satisfaction. Moreover, you might in the course of the trial, if you had
liked, have fixed the penalty at banishment; the state which refuses to let
you go now would have let you go then. But you pretended that you
preferred death to exile (compare Apol.), and that you were not unwilling
to die. And now you have forgotten these fine sentiments, and pay no
respect to us the laws, of whom you are the destroyer; and are doing what
only a miserable slave would do, running away and turning your back upon
the compacts and agreements which you made as a citizen. And first of all
answer this very question: Are we right in saying that you agreed to be
governed according to us in deed, and not in word only? Is that true or
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tom Sawyer, Detective by Mark Twain: where they was bound for, anyway--and when the pals saw them
they lit out and the two new men after them a-chasing them
as tight as they could go. But only a minute or two--then
these two new men slipped back very quiet into the sycamores.
"THEN what did they do? I will tell you what they done.
They found where the thief had got his disguise out of his
carpet-sack to put on; so one of them strips and puts on
that disguise."
Tom waited a little here, for some more "effect"--then
he says, very deliberate:
"The man that put on that dead man's disguise was--
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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 Ball at Sceaux by Honore de Balzac: her coquettish arts. Long familiar with the secret of cajoling the old
man, she lavished on him the most childlike caresses, the tenderest
names; she even went so far as to kiss him to induce him to divulge so
important a secret. The old man, who spent his life in playing off
these scenes on his niece, often paying for them with a present of
jewelry, or by giving her his box at the opera, this time amused
himself with her entreaties, and, above all, her caresses. But as he
spun out this pleasure too long, Emilie grew angry, passed from
coaxing to sarcasm and sulks; then, urged by curiosity, she recovered
herself. The diplomatic admiral extracted a solemn promise from his
niece that she would for the future be gentler, less noisy, and less
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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: materials which I have collected and compared in the aforesaid
essay, that the number of relapses in Europe is generally between
50 and 60 per cent., and certainly rather above than below this
limit. Whilst the Italian statistics, for instance, give 14 per
cent. of relapses amongst prisoners sentenced to penal servitude,
I found by experience 37 per cent; out of 346 who admitted to me
that they had relapsed; and, amongst those who had been sentenced
to simple imprisonment, I found 60 per cent. out of 363, in place
of the 33 per cent. recorded in the prison statistics. The
difference may be due to the particular conditions of the prisons
which I visited; but in any case it establishes the inadequacy of
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