Today's Stichomancy for Oscar Wilde

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

On evening shade and loneliness; And, while the sky grows dim and dimmer, Feel no untold and strange distress-- Only a deeper impulse given By lonely hour and darkened room, To solemn thoughts that soar to heaven Seeking a life and world to come.

STANZAS.

If thou be in a lonely place, If one hour's calm be thine, As Evening bends her placid face

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tales of the Klondyke by Jack London:

Eppingwell besides. Never gave the girl credit for the grit. He looked lingeringly over her, coming back now and again to the eyes, behind the deep earnestness of which he could not guess lay concealed a deeper sneer. And, Jove, wasn't she well put up! Wonder why she looked at him so? Did she want to marry him, too? Like as not; but she wasn't the only one. Her looks were in her favor, weren't they? And young--younger than Loraine Lisznayi. She couldn't be more than twenty-three or four, twenty-five at most. And she'd never get stout. Anybody could guess that the first time. He couldn't say it of Loraine, though. SHE certainly had put on flesh since the day she served as model. Huh! once he

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum:

parents had gone to a neighboring village for food, and had left a fire to warm their little ones while they were absent. But a storm arose and drifted the snow in their path, so they were long on the road. Meantime the fire went out and the frost crept into the bones of the waiting children."

"Poor things!" murmured the Queen softly. "What did you do?"

"I called Nelko, bidding him fetch wood from my forests and breathe upon it until the fire blazed again and warmed the little room where the children lay. Then they ceased shivering and fell asleep until their parents came."

"I am glad you did thus," said the good Queen, beaming upon the

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus

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 A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain:

blackness of midnight; I will blot out the sun, and he shall never shine again; the fruits of the earth shall rot for lack of light and warmth, and the peoples of the earth shall famish and die, to the last man!"

I had to carry the boy out myself, he sunk into such a collapse. I handed him over to the soldiers, and went back.

CHAPTER VI. THE ECLIPSE

IN the stillness and the darkness, realization soon began to supplement knowledge. The mere knowl-

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court