Today's Stichomancy for Claire Forlani

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Man against the Sky by Edwin Arlington Robinson:

He laughed, and something glad within me sank. I may have eyed him with a faint alarm, For now his laugh was lost in what he drank.

"They chill things here with ice from hell," he said; "I might have known it." And he made a face That showed again how much of him was dead, And how much was alive and out of place,

And out of reach. He knew as well as I That all the words of wise men who are skilled In using them are not much to defy What comes when memory meets the unfulfilled.

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Coxon Fund by Henry James:

and frugal, had naturally enough more ambition than charity. He had sharp aims for stray sovereigns, being in view most from the tall steeple of Clockborough. His immediate ambition was to occupy e lui seul the field of vision of that smokily-seeing city, and all his movements and postures were calculated for the favouring angle. The movement of the hand as to the pocket had thus to alternate gracefully with the posture of the hand on the heart. He talked to Clockborough in short only less beguilingly than Frank Saltram talked to HIS electors; with the difference to our credit, however, that we had already voted and that our candidate had no antagonist but himself. He had more than once been at Wimbledon--it was Mrs.

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Fantastic Fables by Ambrose Bierce:

The Wolves and the Dogs The Hen and the Vipers A Seasonable Joke The Lion and the Thorn The Fawn and the Buck The Kite, the Pigeons, and the Hawk The Wolf and the Babe The Wolf and the Ostrich The Herdsman and the Lion The Man and the Viper The Man and the Eagle

Fantastic Fables

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 Hellenica by Xenophon:

you will, by begging Archidamus to dispose Agesilaus favourably to me at my trial." Thus instructed, the youth did not shrink from visiting Archidamus, and implored him for his sake to save his father. Now when Archidamus saw how Cleonymus wept, he too was melted to tears as he stood beside him, but to his petition he made answer thus: "Nay, Cleonymus, it is the bare truth I tell you, I cannot so much as look my father in the face;[11] if I wished anything transacted for me in the city I would beg assistance from the whole world sooner than from my father. Still, since it is you who bid me, rest assured I will do my best to bring this about for you as you desire." He then left the common hall[12] and retired home to rest, but with dawn he arose and