| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie: "Why should she? She had bolted the door leading into his room--a
most unusual proceeding on her part--she had had a most violent
quarrel with him that very afternoon. No, he was the last person
she would admit."
"But you agree with me that the door must have been opened by
Mrs. Inglethorp herself?"
"There is another possibility. She may have forgotten to bolt
the door into the passage when she went to bed, and have got up
later, towards morning, and bolted it then."
"Poirot, is that seriously your opinion?"
"No, I do not say it is so, but it might be. Now, to turn to
 The Mysterious Affair at Styles |
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 La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac: and the foundation perhaps of a form of true happiness which no
Parisian would care for.
"For some time past Monsieur de Merret had been satisfied to ask
Rosalie whether his wife was in bed; on the girl's replying always in
the affirmative, he at once went to his own room, with the good faith
that comes of habit and confidence. But this evening, on coming in, he
took it into his head to go to see Madame de Merret, to tell her of
his ill-luck, and perhaps to find consolation. During dinner he had
observed that his wife was very becomingly dressed; he reflected as he
came home from the club that his wife was certainly much better, that
convalescence had improved her beauty, discovering it, as husbands
 La Grande Breteche |