Today's Stichomancy for Ambrose Bierce

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Voice of the City by O. Henry:

Something was lacking to his comfort, and it made him half angry because be did not know what it was. Two blocks away he came upon a foe, one Conover, whom he was bound in honor to engage in combat.

Mr. McQuirk made the attack with the charac- teristic suddenness and fierceness that had gained for him the endearing sobriquet of "Tiger." The de- fence of Mr. Conover was so prompt and admirable that the conflict was protracted until the onlookers un- selfishly gave the warning cry of "Cheese it -- the cop!" The principals escaped easily by running

The Voice of the City

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

And court the fair eyed dew, to take me to her shining tent The weeping virgin, trembling kneels before the risen sun. Till we arise link'd in a golden band and never part: But walk united bearing food to all our tender flowers.

Dost thou O little cloud? I fear that I am not like thee: For I walk through the vales of Har, and smell the sweetest flowers: But I feed not the little flowers: I hear the warbling birds, But I feed not the warbling birds, they fly and seek their food: But Thel delights in these no more because I fade away And all shall say, without a use this shining women liv'd, Or did she only live to be at death the food of worms.

Poems of William Blake

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from War and the Future by H. G. Wells:

into the British system--or Lloyd George? Who is Mr. Redmond? Why is Lloyd George a Minister, and why does not Mr. Redmond take office? Isn't there something called an ordnance department, and why is there a separate ministry of munitions? Can Mr. Lloyd George remove an incapable general?..."

I found it M. Joseph Reinach particularly penetrating and persistent. It is an amusing but rather difficult exercise to recall what I tried to convey to him by way of a theory of Britain. He is by no means an uncritical listener. I explained that there is an "inner Britain," official Britain, which is Anglican or official Presbyterian, which at the outside in the

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 Lucile by Owen Meredith:

Hail, Muse! But each Muse by this time has, I know, Been used up, and Apollo has bent his own bow All too long; so I leave unassaulted the portal Of Olympus, and only invoke here a mortal.

Hail, Murray!--not Lindley,--but Murray and Son. Hail, omniscient, beneficent, great Two-in-One! In Albermarle Street may thy temple long stand! Long enlighten'd and led by thine erudite hand, May each novice in science nomadic unravel Statistical mazes of modernized travel!