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 The Ebb-Tide by Stevenson & Osbourne:

barricade the house, and die there defending it, like a rat in a crevice. But for the other? The cruise of the Farallone, into which he had plunged only a fortnight before, with such golden expectations, could this be the nightmare end of it? The ship rotting at anchor, the crew stumbling and dying in the scuppers? It seemed as if any extreme of hazard were to be preferred to so grisly a certainty; as if it would be better to up-anchor after all, put to sea at a venture, and, perhaps, perish at the hands of cannibals on one of the more obscure Paumotus. His eye roved swiftly over sea and sky in quest of any promise of wind, but the fountains of the Trade were empty. Where it had run yesterday

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Dynamiter by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson:

rolled on the uneven deep, and saw the sun glitter on the brass of her deck furniture. There, then, was my ship of refuge; and of all my difficulties only one remained: to get on board of her.

Half an hour later, I issued at last out of the woods on the margin of a cove, into whose jaws the tossing and blue billows entered, and along whose shores they broke with a surprising loudness. A wooded promontory hid the yacht; and I had walked some distance round the beach, in what appeared to be a virgin solitude, when my eye fell on a boat, drawn into a natural harbour, where it rocked in safety, but

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Dream Life and Real Life by Olive Schreiner:

come to me now. If you would promise me that if ever another woman comes to seek your help, you will give it to her, and try to love her for my sake, I think it will help me. I think I should be able to keep my faith."

"Oh, I will do anything you ask me to. You are so good and great."

"Oh, good and great!--if you knew! Now go, dear."

"I have not kept you from your work, have I?"

"No; I have not been working lately. Good-by, dear."

The younger woman went; and the elder knelt down by the chair, and wailed like a little child when you have struck it and it does not dare to cry loud.

A year after; it was early spring again.

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 Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn:

darling, your name; ... tell me who you are?" (Dis-moi qui tu es, mignonne;--dis-moi ton nom.)

... Who was it had asked her the same question, in another idiom ever so long ago? The man with the black eyes and nose like an eagle's beak,--the one who gave her the compass. Not this man--no!

She answered, with the timid gravity of surprise:--

--"Chita Viosca"

He still watched her face, and repeated the name slowly,--reiterated it in a tone of wonderment:--"Chita Viosca?--Chita Viosca!"