Today's Stichomancy for Ian McKellan

Or sing her harbours, and the barrier cast Athwart the Lucrine, and how ocean chafes With mighty bellowings, where the Julian wave Echoes the thunder of his rout, and through Avernian inlets pours the Tuscan tide? A land no less that in her veins displays Rivers of silver, mines of copper ore, Ay, and with gold hath flowed abundantly. A land that reared a valiant breed of men, The Marsi and Sabellian youth, and, schooled To hardship, the Ligurian, and with these

Georgics

of homely sense and sheer silliness; of a rich man's overbearing ways, and a total lack of manners; just the kind of husband who is almost entirely led by his wife, yet imagines himself to be the master; apt to domineer in trifles, and to let more important things slip past unheeded--there you have the man!

But the Countess! Ah, how sharp and startling the contrast between husband and wife! The Countess was a little woman, with a flat, graceful figure and enchanting shape; so fragile, so dainty was she, that you would have feared to break some bone if you so much as touched her. She wore a white muslin dress, a rose- colored sash, and rose-colored ribbons in the pretty cap on her

to sounds that are more or less distant from me.

Friday

The naming goes recklessly on, in spite of anything I can do. I had a very good name for the estate, and it was musical and pretty-- GARDEN-OF-EDEN. Privately, I continue to call it that, but not any longer publicly. The new creature says it is all woods and rocks and scenery, and therefore has no resemblance to a garden. Says it looks like a park, and does not look like anything but a park. Consequently, without consulting me, it has been new-named-- NIAGARA FALLS PARK. This is sufficiently high-handed, it seems to me. And already there is a sign up: