| 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: exponents of the art Peace was at this time known as a "portico-
thief," that is to say one who contrived to get himself on to the
portico of a house and from that point of vantage make his
entrance into the premises. During the year 1854 the houses of a
number of well-to-do residents in and about Sheffield were
entered after this fashion, and much valuable property stolen.
Peace was arrested, and with him a girl with whom he was keeping
company, and his sister, Mary Ann, at that time Mrs. Neil. On
October 20, 1854, Peace was sentenced at Doncaster Sessions to
four years' penal servitude, and the ladies who had been found in
possession of the stolen property to six months apiece. Mrs.
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 The Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: considered mad. If you are a little hasty, no one can live with
you. If, to make a stand against this armament of pigmies, you
collect your best powers, your best friends will cry out that you
want to have everything, that you aim at domineering, at tyranny.
In short, your good points will become your faults, your faults
will be vices, and your virtues crime.
"If you save a man, you will be said to have killed him; if he
reappears on the scene, it will be positive that you have secured
the present at the cost of the future. If he is not dead, he will
die. Stumble, and you fall! Invent anything of any kind and claim
your rights, you will be crotchety, cunning, ill-disposed 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 Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: unhomely destination, and lay-to at last where the rock clapped its
black head above the swell, with the tall iron barrack on its
spider legs, and the truncated tower, and the cranes waving their
arms, and the smoke of the engine-fire rising in the mid-sea. An
ugly reef is this of the Dhu Heartach; no pleasant assemblage of
shelves, and pools, and creeks, about which a child might play for
a whole summer without weariness, like the Bell Rock or the
Skerryvore, but one oval nodule of black-trap, sparsely bedabbled
with an inconspicuous fucus, and alive in every crevice with a
dingy insect between a slater and a bug. No other life was there
but that of sea-birds, and of the sea itself, that here ran like a
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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 Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: august pair. The report of this incident, at the time kept very
secret, but recorded by history, did not reach the ears of the
courtiers, and had no effect on the gaiety of Comte de Gondreville's
party beyond keeping Napoleon away.
The prettiest women in Paris, eager to be at the Count's on the
strength of mere hearsay, at this moment were a besieging force of
luxury, coquettishness, elegance, and beauty. The financial world,
proud of its riches, challenged the splendor of the generals and high
officials of the Empire, so recently gorged with orders, titles, and
honors. These grand balls were always an opportunity seized upon by
wealthy families for introducing their heiresses to Napoleon's
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