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: Tommy looked. Standing out half obstructing the path was a huge
boulder which certainly bore a fanciful resemblance to a
"begging" terrier.
"Well," said Tommy, refusing to share Julius's emotion, "it's
what we expected to see, isn't it?"
Julius looked at him sadly and shook his head.
"British phlegm! Sure we expected it--but it kind of rattles me,
all the same, to see it sitting there just where we expected to
find it!"
Tommy, whose calm was, perhaps, more assumed than natural, moved
his feet impatiently.
 Secret Adversary |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tono Bungay by H. G. Wells: such building in the thirties, forties, and fifties. Street
after street must have been rushed into being, Campden Town way,
Pentonville way, Brompton way, West Kensington way in the
Victoria region and all over the minor suburbs of the south side.
I am doubtful if many of these houses had any long use as the
residences of single families if from the very first almost their
tenants did not makeshift and take lodgers and sublet. They were
built with basements, in which their servants worked and
lived--servants of a more submissive and troglodytic generation
who did not mind stairs. The dining-room (with folding doors)
was a little above the ground level, and in that the wholesome
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