| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: attacked by him in Saint-Simonian phrases, he now defends with solid
arguments. This illogical conduct has its origin and its explanation
in the change of front performed by many men besides Raoul during our
recent political evolutions.
ADDENDUM
The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
Bidault (known as Gigonnet)
The Government Clerks
Gobseck
The Vendetta
Cesar Birotteau
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from U. S. Project Trinity Report by Carl Maag and Steve Rohrer: ground zero area. Most of these parties entered in the month after
shot-day. These were the scientists and technicians conducting
experiments or retrieving data. By the beginning of September, most
of those who entered the ground zero area were invited guests (1).
Also during the period 20 July through 21 November, at least 71
soldiers were at the TRINITY test site. Twenty-five of these men were
support personnel who never went within 460 meters of ground zero.
The remaining 46 men were technical personnel, laborers who erected
the 460-meter fence, or military policemen who served as guides.
Eleven of these men, probably members of the fence detail, spent
several days at about 460 meters from ground zero. Working three to
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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 Gorgias by Plato: state-physician, the physician would have no chance; but he who could speak
would be chosen if he wished; and in a contest with a man of any other
profession the rhetorician more than any one would have the power of
getting himself chosen, for he can speak more persuasively to the multitude
than any of them, and on any subject. Such is the nature and power of the
art of rhetoric! And yet, Socrates, rhetoric should be used like any other
competitive art, not against everybody,--the rhetorician ought not to abuse
his strength any more than a pugilist or pancratiast or other master of
fence;--because he has powers which are more than a match either for friend
or enemy, he ought not therefore to strike, stab, or slay his friends.
Suppose a man to have been trained in the palestra and to be a skilful
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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 Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley: It is too sad to think long about, lest we become very
Heraclituses. Let us take the other side of the matter with
Democritus, try to laugh man out of a little of his boastful
ignorance and self-satisfied clumsiness, and tell him, that if the
House of Commons would but summon one of the little Paramecia from
any Thames' sewer-mouth, to give his evidence before their next
Cholera Committee, sanitary blue-books, invaluable as they are,
would be superseded for ever and a day; and sanitary reformers
would no longer have to confess, that they know of no means of
stopping the smells which in past hot summers drove the members out
of the House, and the judges out of Westminster Hall.
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