Today's Stichomancy for Francisco de Paula Santander

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

armed guardsmen rushed into the apartment.

Victory seized the rifle from the floor and leaped between me and them. I had the black emperor upon his back, and both my hands were at his throat, choking the life from him.

The rest happened in the fraction of a second. There was a rending crash above us, then a deafening explosion within the chamber. Smoke and powder fumes filled the room. Half stunned, I rose from the lifeless body of my antagonist just in time to see Victory stagger to her feet and turn toward me. Slowly the smoke cleared to reveal the shattered remnants of the guard. A shell had fallen through the

Lost Continent

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll:

getting in sticks for the bonfire--and it wants plenty of sticks, Kitty! Only it got so cold, and it snowed so, they had to leave off. Never mind, Kitty, we'll go and see the bonfire to-morrow.' Here Alice wound two or three turns of the worsted round the kitten's neck, just to see how it would look: this led to a scramble, in which the ball rolled down upon the floor, and yards and yards of it got unwound again.

`Do you know, I was so angry, Kitty,' Alice went on as soon as they were comfortably settled again, `when I saw all the mischief you had been doing, I was very nearly opening the window, and putting you out into the snow! And you'd have deserved it, you

Through the Looking-Glass

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from To-morrow by Joseph Conrad:

Every Monday she paid him his rent over the railings. He clutched the shillings greedily. He grudged every penny he had to spend on his main- tenance, and when he left her to make his purchases his bearing changed as soon as he got into the street. Away from the sanction of her pity, he felt himself exposed without defence. He brushed the walls with his shoulder. He mistrusted the queer- ness of the people; yet, by then, even the town children had left off calling after him, and the tradesmen served him without a word. The slight-

To-morrow

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 A Hero of Our Time by M.Y. Lermontov:

dress badly and speak French dreadfully! The only Moscow people here this year are Princess Ligovski and her daughter -- but I am not acquainted with them. My soldier's cloak is like a seal of renunciation. The sympathy which it arouses is as painful as charity."

At that moment two ladies walked past us in the direction of the well; one elderly, the other youthful and slender. I could not obtain a good view of their faces on account of their hats, but they were dressed in accordance with the strict