| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: brightness of the dresses, the laces and gold crosses, and the crowd
of people all hopping at the same time. She was standing modestly at a
distance, when presently a young man of well-to-do appearance, who had
been leaning on the pole of a wagon and smoking his pipe, approached
her, and asked her for a dance. He treated her to cider and cake,
bought her a silk shawl, and then, thinking she had guessed his
purpose, offered to see her home. When they came to the end of a field
he threw her down brutally. But she grew frightened and screamed, and
he walked off.
One evening, on the road leading to Beaumont, she came upon a wagon
loaded with hay, and when she overtook it, she recognised Theodore. He
A Simple Soul |
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 Crowd by Gustave le Bon: protestations, that bankers and priests had subsidised the
throwers of bombs, and that the directors of the great financial
companies deserve the same punishment as anarchists.
Affirmations of this kind are always effective with crowds. The
affirmation is never too violent, the declamation never too
threatening. Nothing intimidates the audience more than this
sort of eloquence. Those present are afraid that if they protest
they will be put down as traitors or accomplices.
As I have said, this peculiar style of eloquence has ever been of
sovereign effect in all assemblies. In times of crisis its power
is still further accentuated. The speeches of the great orators
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