| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie: wondering unbelief in her voice.
Sir James echoed her words as he folded the paper carefully and
put it away in his pocket-book, then he looked curiously round
the dingy room.
"It was here that our young friend was confined for so long, was
it not?" he said. "A truly sinister room. You notice the
absence of windows, and the thickness of the close-fitting door.
Whatever took place here would never be heard by the outside
world."
Tuppence shivered. His words woke a vague alarm in her. What if
there WAS some one concealed in the house? Some one who might bar
Secret Adversary |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from American Notes by Rudyard Kipling: death.
Oh! it was then they shrieked and called on their mothers, and
made promises of amendment, till the tackle-man punted them in
their backs and they slid head down into a brick-floored passage,
very like a big kitchen sink, that was blood-red. There awaited
them a red man with a knife, which he passed jauntily through
their throats, and the full-voiced shriek became a splutter, and
then a fall as of heavy tropical rain, and the red man, who was
backed against the passage-wall, you will understand, stood clear
of the wildly kicking hoofs and passed his hand over his eyes,
not from any feeling of compassion, but because the spurted blood
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