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 The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri:

And led me to the thicket, which in vain Mourn'd through its bleeding wounds: "O Giacomo Of Sant' Andrea! what avails it thee," It cried, "that of me thou hast made thy screen? For thy ill life what blame on me recoils?" When o'er it he had paus'd, my master spake: "Say who wast thou, that at so many points Breath'st out with blood thy lamentable speech?" He answer'd: "Oh, ye spirits: arriv'd in time To spy the shameful havoc, that from me My leaves hath sever'd thus, gather them up,

The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary)

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

No wild distress, no gushing spring Of tears in anguish shed;

But all the impatient gloom of one Who waits a distant day, When, some great task of suffering done, Repose shall toil repay. For youth departs, and pleasure flies, And life consumes away, And youth's rejoicing ardour dies Beneath this drear delay;

And Patience, weary with her yoke,

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Mosses From An Old Manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne:

rectify whatever errors of fancy, or even of judgment, we may have incurred during the sun's decline, or among the shadows of the night, or in the less wholesome glow of moonshine. Giovanni's first movement, on starting from sleep, was to throw open the window and gaze down into the garden which his dreams had made so fertile of mysteries. He was surprised and a little ashamed to find how real and matter-of-fact an affair it proved to be, in the first rays of the sun which gilded the dew-drops that hung upon leaf and blossom, and, while giving a brighter beauty to each rare flower, brought everything within the limits of ordinary experience. The young man rejoiced that, in the heart of

Mosses From An Old Manse

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 Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson:

- Lastly, uttered the call; and even as the boat drew near, Like a man that was done with its use, tossed the torch in the sea.

Lightly he leaped on the boat beside the woman; and she Lightly addressed him, and yielded the paddle and place to sit; For now the torch was extinguished the night was black as the pit Rahero set him to row, never a word he spoke, And the boat sang in the water urged by his vigorous stroke. - "What ails you?" the woman asked, "and why did you drop the brand? We have only to kindle another as soon as we come to land." Never a word Rahero replied, but urged the canoe. And a chill fell on the woman. - "Atta! speak! is it you?

Ballads