Today's Stichomancy for John D. Rockefeller

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic:

what she had withheld for the last--the Sixteenth Mazurka. This strange foreign thing she played with her eyes closed, her head tilted obliquely so that Theron could see the rose-tinted, beautiful countenance, framed as if asleep in the billowing luxuriance of unloosed auburn hair. He fancied her beholding visions as she wrought the music-- visions full of barbaric color and romantic forms. As his mind swam along with the gliding, tricksy phantom of a tune, it seemed as if he too could see these visions-- as if he gazed at them through her eyes.

It could not be helped. He lifted himself noiselessly to

The Damnation of Theron Ware

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Heritage of the Desert by Zane Grey:

down the path toward the gate

"I want you to go home with me."

"You're kind--I'm only a sort of beggar--I've no strength left to work my way. I'll go--though it's only to die."

"I haven't the gift of revelation--yet somehow I see that you won't die of this illness. You will come home with me. It's a beautiful place, my Navajo oasis. The Indians call it the Garden of Eschtah. If you can get well anywhere it'll be there."

"I'll go but I ought not. What can I do for you?

"No man can ever tell what he may do for another. The time may come-- well, John, is it settled?" He offered his huge broad hand.

The Heritage of the Desert

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft:

images and hieroglyphs. I mention his talk about angles because it suggests something Wilcox had told me of his awful dreams. He said that the geometry of the dream-place he saw was abnormal, non-Euclidean, and loathsomely redolent of spheres and dimensions apart from ours. Now an unlettered seaman felt the same thing whilst gazing at the terrible reality. Johansen and his men landed at a sloping mud-bank on this monstrous Acropolis, and clambered slipperily up over titan oozy blocks which could have been no mortal staircase. The very sun of heaven seemed distorted when viewed through the polarising miasma welling out from this

Call of Cthulhu

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 Euthydemus by Plato:

life are animals; and have not these gods life?

They have life, I said.

Then are they not animals?

They are animals, I said.

And you admitted that of animals those are yours which you could give away or sell or offer in sacrifice, as you pleased?

I did admit that, Euthydemus, and I have no way of escape.

Well then, said he, if you admit that Zeus and the other gods are yours, can you sell them or give them away or do what you will with them, as you would with other animals?

At this I was quite struck dumb, Crito, and lay prostrate. Ctesippus came