Today's Stichomancy for Nikola Tesla

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

the door had been left ajar, and he could see a pink dress inside. He immediately went in. Mademoiselle Nioche turned and greeted him with a brilliant smile.

"Ah, you have at last decided to come and see me?" she exclaimed. "You just save your politeness. You find me in a fine moment. Sit down." There was a very becoming little flush in her cheek, and her eye had a noticeable spark. You would have said that she had received some very good news.

"Something has happened here!" said Newman, without sitting down.

"You find me in a very fine moment," she repeated. "Two gentlemen-- one of them is M. de Bellegarde, the pleasure of whose acquaintance

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

and sufficient maintenance for tame and wild animals. Moreover, there were a great number of elephants in the island; for as there was provision for all other sorts of animals, both for those which live in lakes and marshes and rivers, and also for those which live in mountains and on plains, so there was for the animal which is the largest and most voracious of all. Also whatever fragrant things there now are in the earth, whether roots, or herbage, or woods, or essences which distil from fruit and flower, grew and thrived in that land; also the fruit which admits of cultivation, both the dry sort, which is given us for nourishment and any other which we use for food--we call them all by the common name of pulse, and the fruits having a hard rind, affording drinks and meats and ointments, and good store of

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Underground City by Jules Verne:

as if it had been carried through a vast speaking trumpet; and soon a few words of a Scotch song came clearly to the ears of the young miner.

"The Hundred Pipers!" cried Harry. "Well, I shall be much surprised if that comes from the lungs of any man but Jack Ryan."

"And who is this Jack Ryan?" asked James Starr.

"An old mining comrade," replied Harry. Then leaning from the platform, "Halloo! Jack!" he shouted.

"Is that you, Harry?" was the reply. "Wait a bit, I'm coming." And the song broke forth again.

In a few minutes, a tall fellow of five and twenty, with a

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 Vailima Letters by Robert Louis Stevenson:

her home in these days; might she not have been threatened with a convent? might there not be some Huguenot business mixed in? Here am I, far from books; if you can help me with a suggestion, I shall say God bless you. She has to be new run away from a strict family, well-justified in her own wild but honest eyes, and meeting these three men, Charles Edward, Marischal, and Balmile, through the accident of a fire at an inn. She must not run from a marriage, I think; it would bring her in the wrong frame of mind. Once I can get her, SOLA, on the highway, all were well with my narrative. Perpend. And help if you can.