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: and hustle. Said he was trailing two crooks."
"Oh!" said Tuppence, her eyes opening. "I see. Go on."
"I hurried along right away. Beresford was there. He pointed
out the crooks. The big one was mine, the guy you bluffed. Tommy
shoved a ticket into my hand and told me to get aboard the cars.
He was going to sleuth the other crook." Julius paused. "I
thought for sure you'd know all this."
"Julius," said Tuppence firmly, "stop walking up and down. It
makes me giddy. Sit down in that armchair, and tell me the whole
story with as few fancy turns of speech as possible."
Mr. Hersheimmer obeyed.
 Secret Adversary |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: done in a century. Except the kitchen, every room and chamber was
now gutted. The house was nothing but a shell,--the apparition of
a house,--as unreal as the painted edifices of a theatre. It was
like the perfect rind of a great cheese, in which a mouse had
dwelt and nibbled till it was a cheese no more. And Peter was the
mouse.
What Peter had torn down, Tabitha had burned up; for she wisely
considered that, without a house, they should need no wood to
warm it; and therefore economy was nonsense. Thus the whole house
might be said to have dissolved in smoke, and flown up among the
clouds, through the great black flue of the kitchen chimney. It
 Twice Told Tales |