Today's Stichomancy for Edgar Allan Poe

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Essays of Francis Bacon by Francis Bacon:

must be sent to Utopia.

To speak now of the reformation, and reigle- ment, of usury; how the discommodities of it may be best avoided, and the commodities retained. It appears, by the balance of commodities and dis- commodities of usury, two things are to be recon- ciled. The one, that the tooth of usury be grinded, that it bite not too much; the other, that there be left open a means, to invite moneyed men to lend to the merchants, for the continuing and quicken- ing of trade. This cannot be done, except you intro-

Essays of Francis Bacon

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from One Basket by Edna Ferber:

Sankey hymn. It's the----"

Ruby lifted her heavy-lidded eyes and sent him a meaning look. "Get down to business, Leon. I'll tell her how good you are while you're making up."

He shot her a malignant glance, but took her advice. "Now what I've been looking for for years is somebody who has got the music knack to give me the accompaniment just a quarter of a jump ahead of my voice, see? I can follow like a lamb, but I've got to have that feeler first. It's more than a knack. It's a gift. And you've got it. I know it when I see it. I want to get away from this night-club thing. There's nothing in it for a man of my

One Basket

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Unconscious Comedians by Honore de Balzac:

with the sum of eleven francs in his pocket for all viaticum, he had in some degree forgotten the miseries and privations of his childhood and his family amid the other privations and miseries which are never lacking to "rapins," whose whole fortune consists of intrepid vocation. Later, the cares of fame and those of success were other causes of forgetfulness.

If you have followed the capricious and meandering course of these studies, perhaps you will remember Mistigris, Schinner's pupil, one of the heroes of "A Start in Life" (Scenes from Private Life), and his brief apparitions in other Scenes. In 1845, this landscape painter, emulator of the Hobbemas, Ruysdaels, and Lorraines, resembles no more

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 Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin:

| EAT NOT TO DULNESS; | | DRINK NOT TO ELEVATION. | +-------------------------------+ | | S.| M.| T.| W.| T.| F.| S.| +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | T.| | | | | | | | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | S.| * | * | | * | | * | | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | O.| **| * | * | | * | * | * | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin