Warning: Pressureless (indicative of instability), the good-natured garland (mobility, superficiality), if coincident with right slant (restlessness) and sizeable script (exaggerated self-confidence), or excessive width (lack of inhibition) betrays those undisciplined and indomitable persons who are capable even of crimes because of their lack of discipline, their restlessness and inability to foresee the consequences of their actions.
It may be noted in passing that the wide, shallow garland (platter) is a first cousin of the thread. The Arcade is a platter or cup or calix turned upside down, a vault or arch. (See figure above) Therefore, the garland writer and the arcade writer are opposites. The following are some of the "confessions," elicited by the tests, as to the arcade writer's nature: "I feel like resisting;" "It is an unkind feeling, not as flexible as garlands;" "To me it is like a cramp;" "I cannot help thinking of a locomotive pushing before her heavy masses of snow;" "I feel stymied, like fighting against some resistance;" "To me it is like hide and seek, and like lying in wait for somebody, perhaps also like pride and haughtiness;" "I feel like disguising myself;" "Like a veil;" "A hide-out;" "Faithful to myself;" "Much more serious than garlands;" "Defense rather than attack;" I could write garlands in my sleep, arcades only when very much awake." As a form of movement, the arcade is slower than the garland, and it presupposes a writer who keeps his eyes open, has a good, perhaps even an artistic sense of proportion, who knows instinctively what to aim at and where to land.
Indeed, the "reversed cup or platter" has been interpreted most contradictorily: as a trap or a fortress, as a gesture of inner independence or haughty reserve, as a gesture of plotters or stalwart defenders, as indicative of the most trustworthy or plainly treacherous, of the deep or the inscrutable. Further, as a gesture, the arcade seems to serve two evident purposes: to hide something or to protect it; to shut out light and strangers, or to retire and contemplate and search within oneself; to erect a structure or edifice, such as a dome, or barricades for defense and a trap for the unsuspecting. As a letter connection the arcade writer's way of thinking and acting (as may be seen from such almost inconsistent statements as, "lying in wait for somebody" and "faithful to myself") cannot be gauged by ordinary means. Closed above and wide open below, the arcade writer relies upon his instinct and intuition rather than reason. He may be a sinister plotter or an artist who goes his own way. For in itself the fact that a person tries to hide something does not mean anything. The liar hides the truth, the plotter his scheme, the assassin his dagger, but the conscientious official hides important documents that are entrusted to his care, and shy, inhibited people hide themselves because they fear to be hurt and imposed on. Or take the builder; his arcade (vault, arch) is no hideout, but a symbol of his technical constructions. Zeppelin, the inventor of the dirigible, used arcades to connect letters, but was not known to have hidden anything reprehensible.
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