| 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: restrictions placed on its sale."
"Does anything in your examination lead you to determine how the
poison was administered?"
"No."
"You arrived at Styles before Dr. Wilkins, I believe?"
"That is so. The motor met me just outside the lodge gates, and
I hurried there as fast as I could."
"Will you relate to us exactly what happened next?"
"I entered Mrs. Inglethorp's room. She was at that moment in a
typical tetanic convulsion. She turned towards me, and gasped
out: 'Alfred--Alfred----' "
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 Tarzan the Untamed by Edgar Rice Burroughs: clambered aboard, they lifted her up and he reached down
and drew her into the fuselage where he removed the thongs
from her wrists and strapped her into her seat and then took
his own directly ahead of her.
The girl turned her eyes toward the Englishman. She was
very pale but her lips smiled bravely.
"Good-bye!" she cried.
"Good-bye, and God bless you!" he called back -- his voice
the least bit husky -- and then: "The thing I wanted to say --
may I say it now, we are so very near the end?"
Her lips moved but whether they voiced consent or refusal
Tarzan the Untamed |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: her vidame, a model of grace and sweetness, but gifted with that
well-bred persistency which triumphs in the long run, had longed to
preserve for her grandson the beautiful illusions of life, and had
therefore brought him up in the highest principles; she instilled into
him her own delicacy of feeling and made him, to outward appearance, a
timid man, if not a fool. The sensibilities of the young fellow,
preserved pure, were not worn by contact without; he remained so
chaste, so scrupulous, that he was keenly offended by actions and
maxims to which the world attached no consequence. Ashamed of this
susceptibility, he forced himself to conceal it under a false
hardihood; but he suffered in secret, all the while scoffing with
Ferragus |
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 The Economist by Xenophon: ill deserves. It frequently occurs in our debates[25] that there is
some course which we strongly favour: naturally we sound its praises;
or some other, which we disapprove of: no less naturally we point out
its defects.
[22] Or, "One member of my household appears as plaintiff, another as
defendant. I must listen and cross-question."
[23] The "asyndeton" would seem to mark a pause, unless some words
have dropped out. See the commentators ad loc.
[24] The scene is perhaps that of a court-martial (cf. "Anab." V.
viii.; Dem. "c. Timocr." 749. 16). (Al. cf. Sturz, "Lex." s.v. "we
are present (as advocates) and censure some general"), or more
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