| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Psychology of Revolution by Gustave le Bon: the reformer finds that the whole people rises up against him.
Then, to the contrary of what befalls in an ordinary revolution,
the autocrat is revolutionary and the people is conservative.
But an attentive study will soon show you that the peoples are
always extremely conservative.
Failure is the rule with these attempts. Whether effected by the
upper classes or the lower, revolutions do not change the souls
of peoples that have been a long time established. They only
change those things that are worn by time and ready to fall.
China is at the present time making a very interesting but
impossible experiment, in seeking, by means of the government,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Europeans by Henry James: quietly sitting down to paint it!"
Mr. Brand had always credited Felix Young with a certain impudence,
but it appeared to him that on this occasion his impudence was so great
as to make a special explanation--or even an apology--necessary.
And the impression, it must be added, was sufficiently natural.
Felix had at all times a brilliant assurance of manner which was simply
the vehicle of his good spirits and his good will; but at present
he had a special design, and as he would have admitted that the design
was audacious, so he was conscious of having summoned all the arts
of conversation to his aid. But he was so far from desiring to offend
his visitor that he was rapidly asking himself what personal compliment
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