| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Professor by Charlotte Bronte: doorsteps of the house we sought ere the clouds, severing with
loud peal and shattered cataract of lightning, emptied their
livid folds in a torrent, heavy, prone, and broad.
"Come in! come in!" said Frances, as, after putting her into the
house, I paused ere I followed: the word decided me; I stepped
across the threshold, shut the door on the rushing, flashing,
whitening storm, and followed her upstairs to her apartments.
Neither she nor I were wet; a projection over the door had warded
off the straight-descending flood; none but the first, large
drops had touched our garments; one minute more and we should not
have had a dry thread on us.
The Professor |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Book of Remarkable Criminals by H. B. Irving: one. Nine of them, he stated, had declared themselves in favour
of Gabrielle Bompard, but in some of these he had discerned a
certain "eroticism of the pupil of the eye" to which he
attributed their leniency. A month's imprisonment was the reward
of these flights of journalistic imagination.
A further scandal in connection with the trial was caused by the
lavish distribution of tickets of admission to all sorts and
kinds of persons by the presiding judge, M. Robert, whose
occasional levities in the course of the proceedings are
melancholy reading. As a result of his indulgence a circular was
issued shortly after the trial by M. Fallieres, then Minister
A Book of Remarkable Criminals |
