Today's Stichomancy for Yoshitaka Amano

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Baby Mine by Margaret Mayo:

Zoie regarded her friend with mingled disgust and disappointment. "No," she said with a sigh and a shake of her head, "that wouldn't do any good. Alfred's so fussy. He always wants his OWN things around."

"He needn't know," declared Aggie boldly.

"What do you mean?" whispered Zoie.

Drawing herself up with an air of great importance, and regarding the wondering young person at her knee with smiling condescension, Aggie prepared to make a most interesting disclosure.

"There was a long article in the paper only this morning," she

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Cavalry General by Xenophon:

territory, it will be useful if the scouts attached to squadrons[5] rode on in advance, their duty being, in case of encountering pathless clefts or gullies, to work round on to practicable ground, and to discover at what point the troopers may effect a passage, so that whole ranks may not go blindly roaming.[6]

[5] {ton upereton} = "ground scouts," al. "orderlies." Ordonnances, trabans (Courier). See Rustow and Kochly, p. 140. "Cyrop." II. i. 21; II. iv. 4; V. iii. 52; VII. v. 18, and VI. ii. 13; "Anab." I. ix. 27; II. i. 9; where "adjutants," "orderlies" would seem to be implied.

[6] Al. "to prevent whole divisions losing their way." Cf. "Anab."

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Brother of Daphne by Dornford Yates:

cobbled streets? Can you not see the grateful smile spreading over the beer-sodden features of the cathedral verger, as he pockets the money we pay for the privilege of following an objectionable rabble round an edifice, which we shall remember more for the biting chill of its atmosphere than anything else? And then the musty quiet of the museums, and the miles we shall cover in the picture galleries, halting now and then to do a brief gloat in front of one of Van Stunk's masterpieces...

My heart leaps up when I behold a Van Stunk on the wall. Wordsworth knew his Englishman, didn't he?"

"Oh, well, if you're so dead against it- "

The Brother of Daphne

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 Bunner Sisters by Edith Wharton:

to her in the shapeless ruin of her life. When she left the hospital she found that Mrs. Hochmuller had gone too. She was penniless, and had no one to turn to. A lady visitor at the hospital was kind, and found her a place where she did housework; but she was so weak they couldn't keep her. Then she got a job as waitress in a down-town lunch-room, but one day she fainted while she was handing a dish, and that evening when they paid her they told her she needn't come again.

"After that I begged in the streets"--(Ann Eliza's grasp again grew tight)--"and one afternoon last week, when the matinees was coming out, I met a man with a pleasant face, something like Mr.