Today's Stichomancy for Robert Anton Wilson

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from St. Ives by Robert Louis Stevenson:

Flora?'

No answer was vouchsafed by my unfortunate and (I may say) extinct accomplices.

'Is that my port?' she pursued. 'Hough! Will somebody give me a glass of my port wine?'

I made haste to serve her.

She looked at me over the rim with an extraordinary expression. 'I hope ye liked it?' said she.

'It is even a magnificent wine,' said I.

'Aweel, it was my father laid it down,' said she. 'There were few knew more about port wine than my father, God rest him!' She

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Ball at Sceaux by Honore de Balzac:

"Punctually; otherwise we should lose our credit, and every sort of respect."

"But at least you have more than one mistress? Ah, you blush, comrade! Well, manners have changed. All these notions of lawful order, Kantism, and liberty have spoilt the young men. You have no Guimard now, no Duthe, no creditors--and you know nothing of heraldry; why, my dear young friend, you are not fully fledged. The man who does not sow his wild oats in the spring sows them in the winter. If I have but eighty thousand francs a year at the age of seventy, it is because I ran through the capital at thirty. Oh! with my wife--in decency and honor. However, your imperfections will not interfere with my

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

Money, being a means of happiness, should make both parties happy when it changes hands; rightly disposed, it should be twice blessed in its employment; and buyer and seller should alike have their twenty shillings worth of profit out of every pound. Benjamin Franklin went through life an altered man, because he once paid too dearly for a penny whistle. My concern springs usually from a deeper source, to wit, from having bought a whistle when I did not want one. I find I regret this, or would regret it if I gave myself the time, not only on personal but on moral and philanthropical considerations. For, first, in a world where money is

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 Massimilla Doni by Honore de Balzac:

by newer and deeper joys--those of an unrevealed future, to which the fairy points as she returns to the blue heaven."

"And you," retorted Cataneo, "have you never seen the direct ray of a star opening the vistas above; have you never mounted on that beam which guides you to the sky, to the heart of the first causes which move the worlds?"

To their hearers, the Duke and Capraja were playing a game of which the premises were unknown.

"Genovese's voice thrills through every fibre," said Capraja.

"And la Tinti's fires the blood," replied the Duke.

"What a paraphrase of happy love is that /cavatina/!" Capraja went on.