| 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: "Yes."
"Impossible! That would be too good a farce! Who told you that,
my friend?"
"Well, no one exactly told me," I confessed. "But he is
arrested."
"Oh, yes, very likely. But for espionage, mon ami."
"Espionage?" I gasped.
"Precisely."
"Not for poisoning Mrs. Inglethorp?"
"Not unless our friend Japp has taken leave of his senses,"
replied Poirot placidly.
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 Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare: jerkin; a pair of old breeches thrice turned; a pair of boots
that have been candle-cases, one buckled, another laced; an old
rusty sword ta'en out of the town armoury, with a broken hilt,
and chapeless; with two broken points: his horse hipped with an
old mothy saddle and stirrups of no kindred; besides, possessed
with the glanders and like to mose in the chine; troubled with
the lampass, infected with the fashions, full of windgalls, sped
with spavins, rayed with the yellows, past cure of the fives,
stark spoiled with the staggers, begnawn with the bots, swayed in
the back and shoulder-shotten; near-legged before, and with a
half-checked bit, and a head-stall of sheep's leather, which,
The Taming of the Shrew |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Yates Pride by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: than you are, Miss Abby."
"Just five years," replied Abby, unruffled, "and she had chances,
and I know it."
"Why didn't she take them, then?"
"Maybe," said Abby, "girls had choice then as much as now, but I
never could make out why she didn't marry Harry Lawton."
Ethel gave her head a toss. "Maybe," said she, "once in a while,
even so long ago, a girl wasn't so crazy to get married as folks
thought. Maybe she didn't want him."
"She did want him," said Abby. "A girl doesn't get so pale and
peaked-looking for nothing as Eudora Yates did, after she had
|
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 Hamlet by William Shakespeare: And not t'haue strew'd thy Graue
Laer. Oh terrible woer,
Fall ten times trebble, on that cursed head
Whose wicked deed, thy most Ingenious sence
Depriu'd thee of. Hold off the earth a while,
Till I haue caught her once more in mine armes:
Leaps in the graue.
Now pile your dust, vpon the quicke, and dead,
Till of this flat a Mountaine you haue made,
To o're top old Pelion, or the skyish head
Of blew Olympus
Hamlet |
