Today's Stichomancy for Harry Houdini

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Emma McChesney & Co. by Edna Ferber:

she'll just naturally be a clinging vine. She'll be a reversion to type. She'll be the kind who'll make eyes and wear pale blue and be crazy about new embroidery-stitches. Just mark my words, T. A."

Buck had a brilliant idea.

"Why don't you pack a bag and run over to Chicago for a few days and see this marvel of the age?"

But Emma shook her head.

"Not now, T. A. Later. Let the delicate machinery of that new household adjust itself and begin to run smoothly and sweetly again. Anyone who might come in now--even Jock's mother--would

Emma McChesney & Co.

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol:

Cossack, but a whisper from the Tatar reassured him. He lighted them in, fastened the door behind them, and led them up the stairs. They found themselves beneath the dark and lofty arches of the monastery church. Before one of the altars, adorned with tall candlesticks and candles, knelt a priest praying quietly. Near him on each side knelt two young choristers in lilac cassocks and white lace stoles, with censers in their hands. He prayed for the performance of a miracle, that the city might be saved; that their souls might be strengthened; that patience might be given them; that doubt and timid, weak-spirited mourning over earthly misfortunes might be banished. A few women, resembling shadows, knelt supporting themselves against the backs of

Taras Bulba and Other Tales

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Man against the Sky by Edwin Arlington Robinson:

The place of many more; Time came, and hardly one of us Had credence to restore, From what appeared one day, the man Whom we had known before.

The broken voice, the withered neck, The coat worn out with care, The cleanliness of indigence, The brilliance of despair, The fond imponderable dreams Of affluence, -- all were there.

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 Charmides and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde:

To watch the world's vain phantasies go by with unbowed head.

Alas! that serene brow, those eloquent lips, Those eyes that mirrored all eternity, Rest in their own Colonos, an eclipse Hath come on Wisdom, and Mnemosyne Is childless; in the night which she had made For lofty secure flight Athena's owl itself hath strayed.

Nor much with Science do I care to climb, Although by strange and subtle witchery She drew the moon from heaven: the Muse Time Unrolls her gorgeous-coloured tapestry