| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: The rule of rhythm in prose is not so intricate. Here, too,
we write in groups, or phrases, as I prefer to call them, for
the prose phrase is greatly longer and is much more
nonchalantly uttered than the group in verse; so that not
only is there a greater interval of continuous sound between
the pauses, but, for that very reason, word is linked more
readily to word by a more summary enunciation. Still, the
phrase is the strict analogue of the group, and successive
phrases, like successive groups, must differ openly in length
and rhythm. The rule of scansion in verse is to suggest no
measure but the one in hand; in prose, to suggest no measure
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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 Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H. P. Lovecraft: older than men's hands had wrenched prodigious blocks. But he
did not like it when, turning back to wave a last farewell, he
thought he saw approaching the camp that squat and evasive old
merchant with slanting eyes, whose conjectured traffick with Leng
was the gossip of distant Dylath-Leen.
After two more quarries
the inhabited part of Inquanok seemed to end, and the road narrowed
to a steeply rising yak-path among forbidding black cliffs. Always
on the right towered the gaunt and distant peaks, and as Carter
climbed farther and farther into this untraversed realm he found
it grew darker and colder. Soon he perceived that there were no
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath |
