Today's Stichomancy for Isaac Asimov

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Myths and Myth-Makers by John Fiske:

than is furnished by this terrible scene of the magic power of mythology to invest the simplest physical phenomena with the most intense human interest; for the true significance of the whole picture is contained in the father's address to his child,

"Sei ruhig, bleibe ruhig, mein Kind; In durren Blattern sauselt der Wind."

The story of the Piper of Hamelin, well known in the version of Robert Browning, leads to the same conclusion. In 1284 the good people of Hamelin could obtain no rest, night or day, by reason of the direful host of rats which infested their town.

Myths and Myth-Makers

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie:

lonely spot called Marston's Spinney, where he had been summoned by an anonymous note, couched in blackmailing terms, and threatening to reveal certain matters to his wife unless he complied with its demands. The prisoner had, accordingly, gone to the appointed spot, and after waiting there vainly for half an hour had returned home. Unfortunately, he had met with no one on the way there or back who could vouch for the truth of his story, but luckily he had kept the note, and it would be produced as evidence.

As for the statement relating to the destruction of the will, the prisoner had formerly practiced at the Bar, and was perfectly

The Mysterious Affair at Styles

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Iron Puddler by James J. Davis:

reviving under a Republican tariff." The orators said the best proof that it was a sham mill lay in the fact that the plutocrats claimed it was a tin mill, while "everybody knows it is impossible to manufacture tin plate in America."

My method of getting votes for the tariff was to take young Democrats from the mill and transport them to Democratic rallies in the far corner of the county where they heard their Democratic orators saying that the mill was a sham put up to fool voters and that it was not manufacturing any tin. When the young Democrats heard such rot they turned against their party. They were farm boys who had been brought up in that county and had quit the farm

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:

arch that expands and advances,--bending from horizon to horizon.

A clear, cold breath accompanies its coming. Reaching the zenith, it seems there to hang poised awhile,--a ghostly bridge arching the empyrean,--upreaching its measureless span from either underside of the world. Then the colossal phantom begins to turn, as on a pivot of air,--always preserving its curvilinear symmetry, but moving its unseen ends beyond and below the sky-circle. And at last it floats away unbroken beyond the blue sweep of the world, with a wind following after. Day after day, almost at the same hour, the white arc rises, wheels, and passes ...