| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: makes you, after all, for the vulgar, indistinguishable from other
men. What's the most inveterate mark of men in general? Why the
capacity to spend endless time with dull women--to spend it I won't
say without being bored, but without minding that they are, without
being driven off at a tangent by it; which comes to the same thing.
I'm your dull woman, a part of the daily bread for which you pray
at church. That covers your tracks more than anything."
"And what covers yours?" asked Marcher, whom his dull woman could
mostly to this extent amuse. "I see of course what you mean by
your saving me, in this way and that, so far as other people are
concerned--I've seen it all along. Only what is it that saves YOU?
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: that whole island; chiefly because after the murder of the tyrant
Hieronymus, all things had been in tumult and confusion at Syracuse. For
which reason the Romans also had sent before to that city a force under
the conduct of Appius, as praetor. While Marcellus was receiving that
army, a number of Roman soldiers cast themselves at his feet, upon
occasion of the following calamity. Of those that survived the battle at
Cannae, some had escaped by flight, and some were taken alive by the
enemy; so great a multitude, that it was thought there were not remaining
Romans enough to defend the walls of the city. And yet the magnanimity
and constancy of the city was such, that it would not redeem the captives
from Hannibal, though it might have done so for a small ransom; a decree
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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 Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll: Is the thing that one needs with a Snark."
He would joke with hyenas, returning their stare
With an impudent wag of the head:
And he once went a walk, paw-in-paw, with a bear,
"Just to keep up its spirits," he said.
He came as a Baker: but owned, when too late--
And it drove the poor Bellman half-mad--
He could only bake Bridecake--for which, I may state,
No materials were to be had.
The last of the crew needs especial remark,
Though he looked an incredible dunce:
The Hunting of the Snark |
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: with this and other social organisms, as it has in England. Also
the example of classical antiquity is opposed to the institution
of the jury, which has been imposed upon us by eager imitation and
political symmetry; for if the jury had disappeared amongst
continental nations, this simply means that it did not find in the
ethnic types, the manners and customs, the physical and
social environments of these nations, an adequate supply of
vitality, such as it has retained, for instance through so many
historical changes, amongst the Anglo-Saxons.
And if sometimes the jury can withstand the abuses of government,
still too frequently it does not withstand its own passions, or
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