| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: entirely deserted of its inhabitants except the poor, and the country of
being plundered and laid waste by the multitude. Nor were the
magistrates deficient in performing their part as boldly as they
promised it; for my Lord Mayor and the sheriffs were continually in
the streets and at places of the greatest danger, and though they did
not care for having too great a resort of people crowding about them,
yet in emergent cases they never denied the people access to them,
and heard with patience all their grievances and complaints. My Lord
Mayor had a low gallery built
on purpose in his hall, where he stood a little removed from the crowd
when any complaint came to be heard, that he might appear with as
A Journal of the Plague Year |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Crowd by Gustave le Bon: cutting of the Suez Canal. An ocular witness, Dr. Cazalis, has
summed up in a few striking lines the entire story of this great
work, recounted by its immortal author.
"From day to day, episode by episode, he told the stupendous
story of the canal. He told of all he had had to vanquish, of
the impossible he had made possible, of all the opposition he
encountered, of the coalition against him, and the
disappointments, the reverses, the defeats which had been
unavailing to discourage or depress him. He recalled how England
had combatted him, attacking him without cessation, how Egypt and
France had hesitated, how the French Consul had been foremost in
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