Today's Stichomancy for Richard Wilhelm

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Paz by Honore de Balzac:

Italy and elsewhere after the marriage. At peace so long as Clementine was away, his trial was renewed on the return of the happy household. As he sat at his window on this memorable night, smoking his latakia in a pipe of wild-cherry wood six feet long, given to him by Adam, these are the thoughts that were passing through his mind:--

"I, and God, who will reward me for suffering in silence, alone know how I love her! But how shall I manage to have neither her love nor her dislike?"

And his thoughts travelled far on this strange theme.

It must not be supposed that Thaddeus was living without pleasure, in the midst of his sufferings. The deceptions of this day, for instance,

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay:

Nightspore.... The day is here."

Nightspore gazed long and earnestly at Maskull's body. "Why was all this necessary?"

"Ask Crystalman," replied Krag sternly. "His world is no joke. He has a strong clutch - but I have a stronger... Maskull was his, but Nightspore is mine."

Chapter 21

MUSPEL

The fog thickened so that the two suns wholly disappeared, and all grew as black as night. Nightspore could no longer see his companion. The water lapped gently against the side of the island

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy:

of the waiters who had been serving inside was now idly leaning against the doorpost.

"Give this to the Mayor at once," he said, handing in his hasty note.

Elizabeth-Jane had seen his movements and heard the words, which attracted her both by their subject and by their accent--a strange one for those parts. It was quaint and northerly.

The waiter took the note, while the young stranger continued--

"And can ye tell me of a respectable hotel that's a little

The Mayor of Casterbridge

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 Arrow of Gold by Joseph Conrad:

devil, while you go amongst the rich from one pair of arms to another, showing all your best tricks. But I will forgive you if you only open the door," he ended in an inflated tone: "You remember how you swore time after time to be my wife. You are more fit to be Satan's wife but I don't mind. You shall be my wife!"

A sound near the floor made me bend down hastily with a stern: "Don't laugh," for in his grotesque, almost burlesque discourses there seemed to me to be truth, passion, and horror enough to move a mountain.

Suddenly suspicion seized him out there. With perfectly farcical unexpectedness he yelled shrilly: "Oh, you deceitful wretch! You

The Arrow of Gold