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 Four Arthurian Romances by Chretien DeTroyes:

sequel. The same situation is threatened in "Yvain", but there Gawain rescues the hero from the lethargy, ignoble in the eyes of a feudal audience, into which he was falling. Cf. also "Marques de Rome" ("Lit. Verein in Stuttgart", Tubingen, 1889), p. 36, where the Empress of Rome thus incites her husband to the chase: "Toz jors cropez vos a Postel; vos n'estes point chevalereus, si come vos deussiez estre, si juenes hom come vos estes"; also J. Gower, "Le Mirour de l'omme, 22, 813 ff.: "Rois est des femmes trop decu, Qant plus les ayme que son dieu,

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad:

done, they had abandoned him now to the horrors of a solitary old age. Nevertheless, his love for them survived these cruel blows.

And there might have been some truth in his protestations. Very soon he began to make overtures of friendship to his eldest stepson, my maternal grandfather; and when these were peremptorily rejected he went on renewing them again and again with characteristic obstinacy. For years he persisted in his efforts at reconciliation, promising my grandfather to execute a will in his favour if he only would be friends again to the extent of calling now and then (it was fairly close neighbourhood for these parts, forty miles or so), or even of putting in an

A Personal Record

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx:

In Germany they fight with the bourgeoisie whenever it acts in a revolutionary way, against the absolute monarchy, the feudal squirearchy, and the petty bourgeoisie.

But they never cease, for a single instant, to instil into the working class the clearest possible recognition of the hostile antagonism between bourgeoisie and proletariat, in order that the German workers may straightaway use, as so many weapons against the bourgeoisie, the social and political conditions that the bourgeoisie must necessarily introduce along with its supremacy, and in order that, after the fall of the reactionary classes in Germany, the fight against the bourgeoisie itself may immediately

The Communist Manifesto

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 Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister:

"Well, he's in better luck than that Savannah dog!"

But General was not in luck. He lay quietly down at the feet of his mistress and we soon knew that life had passed from his faithful body. The first stroke of grief, dealt her in such cruel and sudden form, overbore the poor girl's pride and reserve; she made no attempt to remember or heed surroundings, but kneeling and placing her arms about the neck of her dead servant, she spoke piteously aloud:--

"And I raised him, I raised him from a puppy!"

The female voice, at this, addressed the traveller who was examining the automobile: "Charley, a five or a ten spot is what her feelings need."

The obedient and munificent Charley straightened up from his stooping