Today's Stichomancy for John Carpenter

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson:

into Gray; and lo! when I saw it, the passage seemed to have been written with a single eye to elucidate the - worst? - well, not a very good poem of Gray's. Your little life is excellent, clean, neat, efficient. I have read many of your notes, too, with pleasure. Your connection with Gray was a happy circumstance; it was a suitable conjunction.

I did not answer your letter from the States, for what was I to say? I liked getting it and reading it; I was rather flattered that you wrote it to me; and then I'll tell you what I did - I put it in the fire. Why? Well, just because it was very natural and expansive; and thinks I to myself, if I die one of these fine

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce:

his heart, which had been fluttering faintly, gave a great leap, trying to force itself out at his mouth. His whole body was racked and wrenched with an insupportable anguish! But his disobedient hands gave no heed to the command. They beat the water vigorously with quick, downward strokes, forcing him to the surface. He felt his head emerge; his eyes were blinded by the sunlight; his chest expanded convulsively, and with a supreme and crowning agony his lungs engulfed a great draught of air, which instantly he expelled in a shriek!

He was now in full possession of his physical senses. They

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Herbert West: Reanimator by H. P. Lovecraft:

he thought would to some extent restore life’s chemical and physical processes. It had ended horribly -- in a delirium of fear which we gradually came to attribute to our own overwrought nerves -- and West had never afterward been able to shake off a maddening sensation of being haunted and hunted. The body had not been quite fresh enough; it is obvious that to restore normal mental attributes a body must be very fresh indeed; and the burning of the old house had prevented us from burying the thing. It would have been better if we could have known it was underground. After that experience West had dropped his researches for some time; but as the zeal

Herbert West: Reanimator

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 Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift:

told expressly: that they neither marry, nor are given in marriage.

It is a miserable thing to live in suspense; it is the life of a spider.

The Stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.

Physicians ought not to give their judgment of religion, for the same reason that butchers are not admitted to be jurors upon life and death.

The reason why so few marriages are happy, is, because young ladies spend their time in making nets, not in making cages.