| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: that it will propel a street car better than a gas jet and give more
light than a horse.
ELEGY, n. A composition in verse, in which, without employing any of
the methods of humor, the writer aims to produce in the reader's mind
the dampest kind of dejection. The most famous English example begins
somewhat like this:
The cur foretells the knell of parting day;
The loafing herd winds slowly o'er the lea;
The wise man homeward plods; I only stay
To fiddle-faddle in a minor key.
ELOQUENCE, n. The art of orally persuading fools that white is the
 The Devil's Dictionary |
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 Heroes by Charles Kingsley: up to the town. And when he came, he found that Acrisius his
grandfather had fled. For Proetus his wicked brother had
made war against him afresh; and had come across the river
from Tiryns, and conquered Argos, and Acrisius had fled to
Larissa, in the country of the wild Pelasgi.
Then Perseus called the Argives together, and told them who
he was, and all the noble deeds which he had done. And all
the nobles and the yeomen made him king, for they saw that he
had a royal heart; and they fought with him against Argos,
and took it, and killed Proetus, and made the Cyclopes serve
them, and build them walls round Argos, like the walls which
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