Today's Stichomancy for Ringo Starr

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Letters from England by Elizabeth Davis Bancroft:

meet the professor, etc. . . . We drove out after breakfast into the country to Hawthornden, formerly the residence of Drummond the poet, and to Lord Roslin's grounds, where are the ruins of Roslin Castle and above all, of the Roslin Chapel. . . . After lingering and admiring long we returned to Edinburgh just in season for dinner at Mr. Gordon's, where we found Prof. Wilson, and another daughter and son, Mrs. Rutherford, wife of the Lord Advocate, and Capt. Rutherford, his brother, with his wife. We had a very agreeable evening and engaged to dine there again quite EN FAMILLE, with only the professor, whose conversation is delightful.

The next morning we went out to Craigcrook, Lord Jeffrey's country

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Book of Remarkable Criminals by H. B. Irving:

provoked resentment against them on the part of Auguste. By keeping Auguste and Lebret apart, Castaing prevented awkward explanations. The only possible danger of discovery lay in Auguste's incautious admissions to his mistress and friends; but even had the fact of the destruction of the will come to the ears of the Martignons, it is unlikely that they would have taken any steps involving the disgrace of Auguste.

Castaing had enriched himself considerably by the opportune death of his friend Hippolyte. It might be made a matter of unfriendly comment that, on the first day of May preceding that sad event, Castaing had purchased ten grains of acetate of morphia from a

A Book of Remarkable Criminals

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield:

And up, up the hill come the people, with ticklers and golliwogs, and roses and feathers. Up, up they thrust into the light and heat, shouting, laughing, squealing, as though they were being pushed by something, far below, and by the sun, far ahead of them--drawn up into the full, bright, dazzling radiance to...what?

14. AN IDEAL FAMILY.

That evening for the first time in his life, as he pressed through the swing door and descended the three broad steps to the pavement, old Mr. Neave felt he was too old for the spring. Spring--warm, eager, restless-- was there, waiting for him in the golden light, ready in front of everybody to run up, to blow in his white beard, to drag sweetly on his arm. And he

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 New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson:

Through all my wilds a tameless mouse careers, And in that narrow boundary appears, Huge as the stalking lion of Algiers, Huge as the fabled boar of Calydon. And all my hay is at one swoop impresst By one low-flying swallow for her nest, Strip god Priapus of each attribute Here finds he scarce a pedestal to foot. The gathered harvest scarcely brims a spoon; And all my vintage drips in a cocoon. Generous are you, but I more generous still: