| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane: intended. An occasional man bent forward, intent upon the pink
stockings. Maggie wondered at the splendor of the costume and lost
herself in calculations of the cost of the silks and laces.
The dancer's smile of stereotyped enthusiasm was turned for
ten minutes upon the faces of her audience. In the finale she fell
into some of those grotesque attitudes which were at the time
popular among the dancers in the theatres up-town, giving to the
Bowery public the phantasies of the aristocratic theatre-going
public, at reduced rates.
"Say, Pete," said Maggie, leaning forward, "dis is great."
"Sure," said Pete, with proper complacence.
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: spinster in spectacles, who taught singing and the piano in a
neighboring convent, wearied them with exercises; but when the eldest
girl was ten years old, the Comte de Granville insisted on the
importance of giving her a master. Madame de Granville gave all the
value of conjugal obedience to this needed concession,--it is part of
a devote's character to make a merit of doing her duty.
The master was a Catholic German; one of those men born old, who seem
all their lives fifty years of age, even at eighty. And yet, his
brown, sunken, wrinkled face still kept something infantile and
artless in its dark creases. The blue of innocence was in his eyes,
and a gay smile of springtide abode upon his lips. His iron-gray hair,
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: idiomatic words. But great care must be taken; for an idiomatic phrase, if
an exception to the general style, is of itself a disturbing element. No
word, however expressive and exact, should be employed, which makes the
reader stop to think, or unduly attracts attention by difficulty and
peculiarity, or disturbs the effect of the surrounding language. In
general the style of one author is not appropriate to another; as in
society, so in letters, we expect every man to have 'a good coat of his
own,' and not to dress himself out in the rags of another. (a) Archaic
expressions are therefore to be avoided. Equivalents may be occasionally
drawn from Shakspere, who is the common property of us all; but they must
be used sparingly. For, like some other men of genius of the Elizabethan
|
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 Wyoming by William MacLeod Raine: his handsome eyes and the easy, sinuous grace of his flexed
muscles, labeled him what he was--a man bold and capable to do
what he willed, and a villain every inch of him.
Said she, after that first clash of stormy eyes with bold,
admiring ones:
"I am lost--from the Lazy D ranch."
"Why, no, you're found," he corrected, white teeth flashing in a
smile.
"My motor ran out of gasolene this afternoon. I've been"--there
was a catch in her voice--"wandering ever since."
"You're played out, of course, and y'u've had no supper," he
|
