Today's Stichomancy for David Geffen

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A House of Pomegranates by Oscar Wilde:

which she had fallen, they set meat and drink before her, and bade her have comfort.

But she would neither eat nor drink, but said to the Woodcutter, 'Didst thou not say that the child was found in the forest? And was it not ten years from this day?'

And the Woodcutter answered, 'Yea, it was in the forest that I found him, and it is ten years from this day.'

'And what signs didst thou find with him?' she cried. 'Bare he not upon his neck a chain of amber? Was not round him a cloak of gold tissue broidered with stars?'

'Truly,' answered the Woodcutter, 'it was even as thou sayest.'

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lemorne Versus Huell by Elizabeth Drew Stoddard:

go to church the next day. I acquiesced, but remarked that my piety would not require the carriage, and that I preferred to walk. Besides, it would be well for William and James to attend divine service. She could not spare James, and thought William had better clean the harness, by way of penance.

The morning proved to be warm and sunny. I donned a muslin dress of home manufacture and my own bonnet, and started for church. I had walked but a few paces when the consciousness of being *free* and *alone* struck me. I halted, looked about me, and concluded that I would not go to church, but walk into the fields. I had no knowledge of the whereabouts of the fields; but I walked straight

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from In Darkest England and The Way Out by General William Booth:

Shelter Depots brought them to close quarters, our officers were literally able to put their arms round their necks and plead with them as brethren who had gone astray. We told them that their sins and sorrows had not shut them out from the love of the Everlasting Father, who had sent us to them to help them with all the power of our strong Organisation, of the Divine authority of which we never feel so sure as when it is going forth to seek and to save the lost.

SECTION 2.--WORK FOR THE OUT-OF-WORKS.--THE FACTORY.

The foregoing, it will be said, is all very well for your outcast when he has got fourpence in his pocket, but what if he has not got his fourpence? What if you are confronted with a crowd of hungry desperate

In Darkest England and The Way Out

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 Beauty and The Beast by Bayard Taylor:

the customary phrases, but neither did he seem to speak the lower language of logic and reason; while his tones were so full and mellow that they gave, with every slowly modulated sentence, a fresh satisfaction to the ear. Even his broad a's and the strong roll of his r's verified the rumor of his foreign birth, did not detract from the authority of his words. The doubts which had preceded him somehow melted away in his presence, and he came forth, after the meeting had been dissolved by the shaking of hands, an accepted tenant of the high seat.

That evening, the family were alone in their new home. The plain rush-bottomed chairs and sober carpet, in contrast with the dark,