Today's Stichomancy for Jack Kevorkian

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Symposium by Xenophon:

[26] For Peisander see Cobet, "Pros. Xen." p. 46 foll. A thoroughgoing oligarch (Thuc. viii. 90), he was the occasion of much mirth to the comic writers (so Grote, "H. G." viii. 12). See re his "want of spirit" Aristoph. "Birds," 1556:

{entha kai Peisandros elthe deomenos psukhen idein, e zont ekeinon proulipe, k.t.l.}

where the poet has a fling at Socrates also:

Socrates beside the brink, Summons from the murky sink Many a disembodied ghost;

The Symposium

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Riverman by Stewart Edward White:

and the backing removed, the mere sawing through of the massive sill should carry away the whole obstruction.

"Next time will decide it," remarked Orde. "If the sheriff brings a posse and sits down to lay for us, of course we won't be able to get near to finish the job."

"I didn't think that of George Morris," commented Sims in an aggrieved way. "He was a riverman himself once before he was sheriff."

"He's got to obey orders, and serve a warrant when it's issued, of course," replied Orde to this. "What did you expect?"

At the end of another hour, which brought the time to four o'clock,

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

new kind of rose in somebody's garden, or a mon- strous cabbage grown by a cottager. He loves to hear tell of or to be shown something that he calls 'outlandish.' Perhaps it was just that outlandish- ness of the man which influenced old Swaffer. Per- haps it was only an inexplicable caprice. All I know is that at the end of three weeks I caught sight of Smith's lunatic digging in Swaffer's kitch- en garden. They had found out he could use a spade. He dug barefooted.

"His black hair flowed over his shoulders. I

Amy Foster

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 The Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac:

certain familiarity, I could see that my beautiful pupil took pleasure in our intercourse, and when the family returned to Paris she expressed the utmost regret at leaving Rome; I even fancied, God forgive me, that I saw something like a tear in her eye when we parted.

On my return to Paris, some months later, my first visit was to the hotel de Lanty. Marianina was too well bred and too kind at heart to be discourteous to any one, but I felt at once that a cold restrained manner was substituted for the gracious friendliness of the past. It seemed to me probable that her evident liking, I will not say for me personally, but for my conversation and acquirements, had been noticed