Today's Stichomancy for Arthur E. Waite

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

fliers were moving in continuous lines in opposite directions. For the greater part they skimmed along the surface of the sward, soaring gracefully into the air at times to pass over a slower-going driver ahead, or at intersections, where the north and south traffic has the right of way and the east and west must rise above it.

From private hangars upon many a roof top fliers were darting into the line of traffic. Gay farewells and parting admonitions mingled with the whirring of motors and the subdued noises of the city.

Yet with all the swift movement and the countless

Thuvia, Maid of Mars

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Letters from England by Elizabeth Davis Bancroft:

and some persons not in Miss Murray's line.

But the trumpets sound! the Queen approaches! The trumpet continues, and first enter at a side door close at my elbow the college of heralds richly dressed, slowly, two and two; then the great officers of the household, then the Lord Chancellor bearing the purse, seal, and speech of the Queen, with the macebearers before him. Then Lord Lansdowne with the crown, the Earl of Zetland, with the cap of maintenance, and the Duke off Wellington, with the sword of State. Then Prince Albert, leading the Queen, followed by the Duchess of Sutherland, Mistress of the Robes, and the Marchioness of Douro, daughter-in-law of the Duke of Wellington,

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Time Machine by H. G. Wells:

--showed how universal were its ramifications. What so natural, then, as to assume that it was in this artificial Underworld that such work as was necessary to the comfort of the daylight race was done? The notion was so plausible that I at once accepted it, and went on to assume the how of this splitting of the human species. I dare say you will anticipate the shape of my theory; though, for myself, I very soon felt that it fell far short of the truth.

`At first, proceeding from the problems of our own age, it seemed clear as daylight to me that the gradual widening of the present merely temporary and social difference between the

The Time Machine

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 Poems by T. S. Eliot:

We two shall lie together, lapt In a five per cent Exchequer Bond.

I shall not want Society in Heaven, Lucretia Borgia shall be my Bride; Her anecdotes will be more amusing Than Pipit's experience could provide.

I shall not want Pipit in Heaven: Madame Blavatsky will instruct me In the Seven Sacred Trances; Piccarda de Donati will conduct me ... . . . . . .