Today's Stichomancy for George Bernard Shaw

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Marriage Contract by Honore de Balzac:

revenues of the entail do not pay this loan as quickly as I now expect, you and I will settle on my return. The sum I ask for is absolutely necessary to enable me to seek my fortune in India; and if I know you, I shall receive it in Bordeaux the night before I sail.

I have acted as you would have acted in my place. I held firm to the last moment, letting no one suspect my ruin. Before the news of the seizure of my property at Bordeaux reached Paris, I had attempted, with one hundred thousand francs which I obtained on notes, to recover myself by play. Some lucky stroke might still have saved me. I lost.

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Anabasis by Xenophon:

and property in Scillus, where he lived for many years before having to move once more, to settle in Corinth. He died in 354 B.C.

The Anabasis is his story of the march to Persia to aid Cyrus, who enlisted Greek help to try and take the throne from Artaxerxes, and the ensuing return of the Greeks, in which Xenophon played a leading role. This occurred between 401 B.C. and March 399 B.C.

PREPARER'S NOTE

This was typed from Dakyns' series, "The Works of Xenophon," a

Anabasis

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Recruit by Honore de Balzac:

him, and seemed to study him with curiosity; then she said in an altered voice, and very softly,--

"I trust you."

"I am here to share your crime," replied the good man, simply.

She quivered. For the first time in that little town, her soul sympathized with that of another. The old man now understood both the hopes and the fears of the poor woman. The letter was from her son. He had returned to France to share in Granville's expedition, and was taken prisoner. The letter was written from his cell, but it told her to hope. He did not doubt his means of escape, and he named to her three days, on one of which he expected to be with her in disguise.

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 Caesar's Commentaries in Latin by Julius Caesar:

Ita nostri acriter in hostes signo dato impetum fecerunt itaque hostes repente celeriterque procurrerunt, ut spatium pila in hostes coiciendi non daretur. Relictis pilis comminus gladiis pugnatum est. At Germani celeriter ex consuetudine sua phalange facta impetus gladiorum exceperunt. Reperti sunt complures nostri qui in phalanga insilirent et scuta manibus revellerent et desuper vulnerarent. Cum hostium acies a sinistro cornu pulsa atque in fugam coniecta esset, a dextro cornu vehementer multitudine suorum nostram aciem premebant. Id cum animadvertisset P. Crassus adulescens, qui equitatui praeerat, quod expeditior erat quam ii qui inter aciem versabantur, tertiam aciem laborantibus nostris subsidio misit.

Ita proelium restitutum est, atque omnes hostes terga verterunt nec