Today's Stichomancy for Ambrose Bierce

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Mucker by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

shooting. It's awfully dull sitting around here doing nothing."

"Si, senor," agreed Rozales; "I, too, find it so. Let us go together--I know where the shooting is best."

"I don't doubt it," thought Bridge; "probably in the back;" but aloud he said: "Certainly, that will be fine," for he guessed that Rozales had been set to watch his movements and prevent his escape, and, perchance, to be the sole witness of some unhappy event which should carry Senor Bridge to the arms of his fathers.

Rozales called a soldier to saddle and bridle their horses and shortly after the two were riding abreast down the trail

The Mucker

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War by Frederick A. Talbot:

V. Germany's aerial dreadnought fleet VI. The military value of Germany's aerial fleet VII. Aeroplanes of war VIII. Scouting from the skies IX. The airman and artillery X. Bomb-throwing from air-craft XI. Armoured aeroplanes XII. Battles in the air XIII. Tricks and ruses to baffle the airman XIV. Anti-aircraft guns. Mobile weapons XV. Anti-aircraft guns. Immobile weapons

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates by Howard Pyle:

limp and inert; then one shuddering spasm passed over him and he lay silent and still, with his face half buried in the sand.

Levi, with the knife still gripped tight in his hand, stood leaning over his victim, looking down upon his body. His shirt and hand, and even his naked arm, were stained and blotched with blood. The moon lit up his face and it was the face of a devil from hell.

At last he gave himself a shake, stooped and wiped his knife and hand and arm upon the loose petticoat breeches of the dead man. He thrust his knife back into its sheath, drew a key from his pocket and unlocked the chest. In the moonlight Hiram could see

Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates

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 The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley:

spoke in my first lecture.

He shows, moreover, that the acquiescence in a centralised administration; the expectation that the government should do everything for the people, and nothing for themselves; the consequent loss of local liberties, local peculiarities; the helplessness of the towns and the parishes: and all which issued in making Paris France, and subjecting the whole of a vast country to the arbitrary dictates of a knot of despots in the capital, was not the fruit of the Revolution, but of the Ancien Regime which preceded it; and that Robespierre and his "Comite de Salut Public," and commissioners sent forth to the four winds of heaven in bonnet rouge