| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Pierrette by Honore de Balzac: mathematicians of the Bureau give to longitudes. They literally
ransack the whole kingdom. At the first ray of hope all the post-
offices in Paris are alert. Sometimes the receiver of a missing letter
is amazed at the network of scrawled directions which covers both back
and front of the missive,--glorious vouchers for the administrative
persistency with which the post has been at work. If a man undertook
what the post accomplishes, he would lose ten thousand francs in
travel, time, and money, to recover ten sous. The letter of the old
Lorrains, addressed to Monsieur Rogron of Provins (who had then been
dead a year) was conveyed by the post in due time to Monsieur Rogron,
son of the deceased, a mercer in the rue Saint-Denis in Paris. And
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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 Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: possible none of those suppressions by which other arts
obtain relief, continuity, and vigour: no hieroglyphic
touch, no smoothed impasto, no inscrutable shadow, as in
painting; no blank wall, as in architecture; but every word,
phrase, sentence, and paragraph must move in a logical
progression, and convey a definite conventional import.
Now the first merit which attracts in the pages of a good
writer, or the talk of a brilliant conversationalist, is the
apt choice and contrast of the words employed. It is,
indeed, a strange art to take these blocks, rudely conceived
for the purpose of the market or the bar, and by tact of
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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 Dream Life and Real Life by Olive Schreiner: She looked like a queen. I said "Good-evening," and turned away quickly to
the glass to arrange my old black scarf across my old black dress.
Then I felt a hand touch my hair.
"Stand still," she said.
I looked in the glass. She had taken the white rose from her breast, and
was fastening it in my hair.
"How nice dark hair is; it sets off flowers so." She stepped back and
looked at me. "It looks much better there!"
I turned round.
"You are so beautiful to me," I said.
"Y-e-s," she said, with her slow Colonial drawl; "I'm so glad."
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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 Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: sense of their immunity, added to that of their worth. In our day the
accused is usually a human being, or a socialist, but in mediaeval
times, animals, fishes, reptiles and insects were brought to trial. A
beast that had taken human life, or practiced sorcery, was duly
arrested, tried and, if condemned, put to death by the public
executioner. Insects ravaging grain fields, orchards or vineyards
were cited to appeal by counsel before a civil tribunal, and after
testimony, argument and condemnation, if they continued _in
contumaciam_ the matter was taken to a high ecclesiastical court,
where they were solemnly excommunicated and anathematized. In a
street of Toledo, some pigs that had wickedly run between the
The Devil's Dictionary |
