Today's Stichomancy for Voltaire

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift:

And talk of spectacles and pills; To-morrow will be time enough To hear such mortifying stuff. Yet, since from reason may be brought A better and more pleasing thought, Which can, in spite of all decays, Support a few remaining days: From not the gravest of divines Accept for once some serious lines. Although we now can form no more Long schemes of life, as heretofore;

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Marriage Contract by Honore de Balzac:

rest of my old acquaintance. Oh! you'll see! we shall soon be in the very heart of Parisian life; all will be enjoyment for us. You shall have the pleasures, my dearest, and I the last occupation of existence,--the game of ambition! Don't be alarmed when you see me selling this house. Do you suppose we shall ever come back to live in Bordeaux? no. Lanstrac? yes. But we shall spend all our winters in Paris, where our real interests lie. Well, Natalie, tell me, was it very difficult to do what I asked of you?"

"My little mamma! every now and then I felt ashamed."

"Solonet advises me to put the proceeds of this house into an annuity," said Madame Evangelista, "but I shall do otherwise; I won't

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Fanny Herself by Edna Ferber:

world. London has its foul streets, smoke-blackened, sinister. But they are ugly as crime is ugly--and as fascinating. It is like the ugliness of an old hag who has lived a life, and who could tell you strange tales, if she would. Walking through them you think of Fagin, of Children of the Ghetto, of Tales of Mean Streets. Naples is honeycombed with narrow, teeming alleys, grimed with the sediment of centuries, colored like old Stilton, and smelling much worse. But where is there another Cottage Grove avenue! Sylvan misnomer! A hideous street, and sordid. A street of flat-wheeled cars, of delicatessen

Fanny Herself

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 King Henry VI by William Shakespeare:

With sorrow snares relenting passengers, Or as the snake roll'd in a flowering bank, With shining checker'd slough, doth sting a child That for the beauty thinks it excellent. Believe me, lords, were none more wise than I-- And yet herein I judge mine own wit good-- This Gloster should be quickly rid the world, To rid us from the fear we have of him.

CARDINAL. That he should die is worthy policy, But yet we want a colour for his death,