| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie: how it makes everything fit in. Now, what are we to do? Of
course, it will be generally known to-morrow."
John reflected.
"Never mind," he said at last, "we won't say anything at present.
There is no need. As you say, it will be known soon enough."
But to my intense surprise, on getting down early the next
morning, and eagerly opening the newspapers, there was not a word
about the arrest! There was a column of mere padding about "The
Styles Poisoning Case," but nothing further. It was rather
inexplicable, but I supposed that, for some reason or other, Japp
wished to keep it out of the papers. It worried me just a
The Mysterious Affair at Styles |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Gentle Grafter by O. Henry: introduces Andy, and we talk about a few volatile topics, such as will
go around at meetings of boards of directors and old associates like
us three were. Old Smoke-'em-out leads us into a kind of summer house
in the yard near the gate and took up the harp of life and smote on
all the chords with his mighty right.
"'Gents,' says he, 'I'm glad to see you. Maybe you can help me out of
a scrape. I'm getting a bit old for street work, so I leased this
dogdays emporium so the good things would come to me. Two weeks before
the season opened I gets a letter signed Lieut. Peary and one from the
Duke of Marlborough, each wanting to engage board for part of the
summer.
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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 The Call of the Canyon by Zane Grey: old gobblers hev begun to gobble now. I'll take you gobbler huntin' if
you'd like to go."
"I'm sure I would."
"There's good trout fishin' along heah a little later," he said, pointing
to the stream. "Crick's too high now. I like West Fork best. I've ketched
some lammin' big ones up there."
Carley was amused and interested. She could not say that Charley had shown
any indication of his mental peculiarity to her. It took considerable
restraint not to lead him to talk more about Flo and Glenn. Presently they
reached the turn in the road, opposite the cottage Carley had noticed
yesterday, and here her loquacious escort halted.
The Call of the Canyon |
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 Before Adam by Jack London: paddled away.
Gradually we drew out of range, though Red-Eye
continued making trips for more ammunition and the
pebbles continued to whiz about us. Out in the centre
of the slough there was a slight current, and in our
excitement we failed to notice that it was drifting us
into the river. We paddled, and Red-Eye kept as close
as he could to us by following along the shore. Then
he discovered larger rocks. Such ammunition increased
his range. One fragment, fully five pounds in weight,
crashed on the log alongside of me, and such was its
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