| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Extracts From Adam's Diary by Mark Twain: with some severity and ordered her to go and get some more and not
make such a spectacle of herself. She did it, and after this we
crept down to where the wild-beast battle had been, and collected
some skins, and I made her patch together a couple of suits proper
for public occasions. They are uncomfortable, it is true, but
stylish, and that is the main point about clothes. ... I find
she is a good deal of a companion. I see I should be lonesome and
depressed without her, now that I have lost my property. Another
thing, she says it is ordered that we work for our living hereafter.
She will be useful. I will superintend.
Ten Days Later
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from War and the Future by H. G. Wells: begin to dislike us. She will plan a revenge. Turning aside
from her erstwhile innocent career, she may even think of hate.
What are our obligations to France, Italy, Serbia and Russia,
what is the happiness of a few thousands of the Herero, a few
millions of the Belgians--whose numbers moreover are constantly
diminishing--when we might weigh them against the danger, the
most terrible danger, of incurring /permanent German
hostility?.../
A Frenchman I talked to knew better than that. "What will happen
to Germany," I asked, "if we are able to do so to her and so;
would she take to dreams of a /Revanche?/"
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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 Criminal Sociology by Enrico Ferri: imprisonment recognised as excessive and unnecessary.
Allied to the principle of indeterminate segregation is that of
conditional release, which with the progressive prison system,
known as the Irish, is now accepted in nearly all European
countries. But conditional liberation in the system of definite
punishments, without distinction amongst the types of criminals,
is both contradictory in theory and ineffectual in practice. At
present, indeed, it has only a mechanical and almost impersonal
applica tion, with one fallacious test, that of the alleged
``good conduct'' of the prisoner, which, according to the English
Inquiry Commission in 1863, ``can only have the negative value of
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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 The Talisman by Walter Scott: life," he said, addressing the physician, "thou, before whom the
angel Azrael spreadeth his wings for flight--thou, wiser than
Solimaun Ben Daoud, upon whose signet was inscribed the REAL NAME
which controls the spirits of the elements--forbid it, Heaven,
that while thou travellest upon the track of benevolence, bearing
healing and hope wherever thou comest, thine own course should be
saddened for lack of the tale and of the song. Behold, while thy
servant is at thy side, he will pour forth the treasures of his
memory, as the fountain sendeth her stream beside the pathway,
for the refreshment or him that walketh thereon."
After this exordium, Hassan uplifted his voice, and began a tale
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