Today's Stichomancy for Frank Lloyd Wright

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from St. Ives by Robert Louis Stevenson:

dull for him,' I explained.

'The merciful man is merciful to his ass,' observed my sententious friend. 'Bring him by all means!

"The harp, his sole remaining joy, Was carried by an orphan boy;"

and I have no doubt the orphan boy can get some cold victuals in the kitchen, while the Senatus dines.'

Accordingly, being now quite recovered from my unmanly condition, except that nothing could yet induce me to cross the North Bridge, I arranged for my ball dress at a shop in Leith Street, where I was not served ill, cut out Rowley from his seclusion, and was ready

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Miracle Mongers and Their Methods by Harry Houdini:

began a century ago; for in 1816 the magician Sieur Boaz, K. C., featured a performer who was billed as the ``Man-Salamander.'' The fact that Boaz gave him a place on his programme is proof that this man was clever, but the effects there listed show nothing original.

In 1818 a Mr. Carlton, Professor of Chemistry, toured England in company with Rae, the Bartholomew Fair magician. As will be seen by the handbill reproduced here, Carlton promised to explain the ``Deceptive Part'' of

Miracle Mongers and Their Methods

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde:

allowed a little time to myself now and then.

LORD AUGUSTUS. [Looking round.] Time to educate yourself, I suppose.

DUMBY. No, time to forget all I have learned. That is much more important, dear Tuppy. [LORD AUGUSTUS moves uneasily in his chair.]

LORD DARLINGTON. What cynics you fellows are!

CECIL GRAHAM. What is a cynic? [Sitting on the back of the sofa.]

LORD DARLINGTON. A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

CECIL GRAHAM. And a sentimentalist, my dear Darlington, is a man

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 Faraday as a Discoverer by John Tyndall:

though the impossibility is by no means evident. The key to the difficulty is this. He looks upon every insulated conductor as the inner coating of a Leyden jar. An insulated sphere in the middle of a room is to his mind such a coating; the walls are the outer coating, while the air between both is the insulator, across which the charge acts by induction. Without this reaction of the walls upon the sphere you could no more, according to Faraday, charge it with electricity than you could charge a Leyden jar, if its outer coating were removed. Distance with him is immaterial. His strength as a generalizer enables him to dissolve the idea of magnitude; and if you abolish the walls of the room--even the earth itself--he would