Today's Stichomancy for Robert A. Heinlein

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from War and the Future by H. G. Wells:

Bottomley. One might search for a long time among prominent laymen to find the equal of the Bishop of London. Nevertheless it is impossible to conceal the impression of tawdriness that this latter gentleman's work as head of the National Mission has left upon my mind. Attired in khaki he has recently been preaching in the open air to the people of London upon Tower Hill, Piccadilly, and other conspicuous places. Obsessed as I am by the humanities, and impressed as I have always been by the inferiority of material to moral facts, I would willingly have exchanged the sight of two burning Zeppelins for this spectacle of ecclesiastical fervour. But as it is, I am obliged to trust

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Vailima Prayers & Sabbath Morn by Robert Louis Stevenson:

statement was received seriously. It could not be, we thought, that danger threatened any one within the house; but Mr. Graham Balfour, my husband's cousin, very near and dear to us, was away on a perilous cruise. Our fears followed the various vessels, more or less unseaworthy, in which he was making his way from island to island to the atoll where the exiled king, Mataafa, was at that time imprisoned. In my husband's last prayer, the night before his death, he asked that we should be given strength to bear the loss of this dear friend, should such a sorrow befall us.

Contents

For Success

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson:

leave it pending. We are both Scots besides, and I suspect both rather Scotty Scots; my own Scotchness tends to intermittency, but is at times erisypelitous - if that be rightly spelt. Lastly, I have gathered we had both made our stages in the metropolis of the winds: our Virgil's 'grey metropolis,' and I count that a lasting bond. No place so brands a man.

Finally, I feel it a sort of duty to you to report progress. This may be an error, but I believed I detected your hand in an article - it may be an illusion, it may have been by one of those industrious insects who catch up and reproduce the handling of each emergent man - but I'll still hope it was yours - and hope it may

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 Flame and Shadow by Sara Teasdale:

and the continuation is indented two spaces. Also, some obvious errors may have been corrected.]

Flame and Shadow

By Sara Teasdale Author of "Rivers to the Sea", "Love Songs", etc.

To E.

"Recois la flamme ou l'ombre De tous mes jours."

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Blue Squills