| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Golden Threshold by Sarojini Naidu: under the olives, in their grave, strong, antique
beauty--Etruscan gods!"
In Italy she watches the faces of the monks, and at one moment
longs to attain to their peace by renunciation, longs for
Nirvana; "then, when one comes out again into the hot sunshine
that warms one's blood, and sees the eager hurrying faces of men
and women in the street, dramatic faces over which the disturbing
experiences of life have passed and left their symbols, one's
heart thrills up into one's throat. No, no, no, a thousand times
no! how can one deliberately renounce this coloured, unquiet,
fiery human life of the earth?" And, all the time, her subtle
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: such as rage and battle vent.[9] At last a portion of the Thebans
forced their way through towards Helicon, but many were slain in that
departure.
[9] Or, "as the rage and fury of battle may give vent to." See
"Cyrop." VII. i. 38-40. A graphic touch omitted in "Hell." IV.
iii. 19.
Victory remained with Agesilaus. Wounded himself, they bore him back
to his own lines, when some of his troopers came galloping up to tell
him that eighty of the enemy had taken refuge with their arms[10]
under cover of the Temple,[11] and they asked what they ought to do.
He, albeit he had received wounds all over him, having been the mark
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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 A Lover's Complaint by William Shakespeare: Each eye that saw him did enchant the mind;
For on his visage was in little drawn,
What largeness thinks in paradise was sawn.
'Small show of man was yet upon his chin;
His phoenix down began but to appear,
Like unshorn velvet, on that termless skin,
Whose bare out-bragg'd the web it seemed to wear:
Yet show'd his visage by that cost more dear;
And nice affections wavering stood in doubt
If best were as it was, or best without.
His qualities were beauteous as his form,
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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 Crowd by Gustave le Bon: in consequence to show how this mind has been fashioned by the
system in vogue, and how the mass of the indifferent and the
neutral has become progressively an army of the discontented
ready to obey all the suggestions of utopians and rhetoricians.
It is in the schoolroom that socialists and anarchists are found
nowadays, and that the way is being paved for the approaching
period of decadence for the Latin peoples.
CHAPTER II
THE IMMEDIATE FACTORS OF THE OPINIONS OF CROWDS
1. IMAGES, WORDS AND FORMULAE. The magical power of words
and formulae--The power of words bound up with the images they
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