Today's Stichomancy for H. G. Wells

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ten Years Later by Alexandre Dumas:

what he has promised me -- warmth and light; so that I march, comparatively, now, as I marched formerly, -- from nothing to everything. Only the nothing of to-day is the all of former days; there has only this little change taken place in my life. And now let us see! let us take the part of the heart, as I just now was speaking of it. But in truth, I only spoke of it from memory." And the Gascon applied his hand to his breast, as if he were actually seeking the place where his heart was.

"Ah! wretch!" murmured he, smiling with bitterness. "Ah! poor mortal species! You hoped, for an instant, that you had

Ten Years Later

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

Dark-eddying, whirl light stalks and flying straws. Oft too comes looming vast along the sky A march of waters; mustering from above, The clouds roll up the tempest, heaped and grim With angry showers: down falls the height of heaven, And with a great rain floods the smiling crops, The oxen's labour: now the dikes fill fast, And the void river-beds swell thunderously, And all the panting firths of Ocean boil. The Sire himself in midnight of the clouds Wields with red hand the levin; through all her bulk

Georgics

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson:

begin, I think, with a separate opuscule on the Samoan Trouble, about as long as KIDNAPPED, not very interesting, but valuable - and a thing proper to be done. And then, hey! for the big South Sea Book: a devil of a big one, and full of the finest sport.

This morning as I was going along to my breakfast a little before seven, reading a number of BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE, I was startled by a soft TALOFA, ALII (note for my mother: they are quite courteous here in the European style, quite unlike Tahiti), right in my ear: it was Mataafa coming from early mass in his white coat and white linen kilt, with three fellows behind him. Mataafa is the nearest thing to a hero in my history, and really a fine fellow; plenty

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:

civitatum, ad Caesarem gratulatum convenerunt: intellegere sese, tametsi pro veteribus Helvetiorum iniuriis populi Romani ab his poenas bello repetisset, tamen eam rem non minus ex usu [terrae] Galliae quam populi Romani accidisse, propterea quod eo consilio florentissimis rebus domos suas Helvetii reliquissent uti toti Galliae bellum inferrent imperioque potirentur, locumque domicilio ex magna copia deligerent quem ex omni Gallia oportunissimum ac fructuosissimum iudicassent, reliquasque civitates stipendiarias haberent. Petierunt uti sibi concilium totius Galliae in diem certam indicere idque Caesaris facere voluntate liceret:

sese habere quasdam res quas ex communi consensu ab eo petere vellent. Ea re permissa diem concilio constituerunt et iure iurando ne quis