Today's Stichomancy for Erwin Schroedinger

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Mistress Wilding by Rafael Sabatini:

of trading. They are overshrewd for an honest gentleman."

"You mean," she gasped, her hand pressed to her heart, her face a deathly white, "you mean that you'll not save him?"

"I mean," said he, "that I will have no further bargains with you."

There was such hard finality in his tone that she recoiled, beaten and without power, to return to the assault. She had played and lost. She had yielded her lips to his kisses, and - husband though he might be in name - shame was her only guerdon.

One look she gave him from out of that face so white and pitiful, then with a shudder turned from him and fled his presence. He sprang after her as the door closed, then checked and stood in thought, very grim

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde:

to Narcissus. Truth in art is the unity of a thing with itself: the outward rendered expressive of the inward: the soul made incarnate: the body instinct with spirit. For this reason there is no truth comparable to sorrow. There are times when sorrow seems to me to be the only truth. Other things may be illusions of the eye or the appetite, made to blind the one and cloy the other, but out of sorrow have the worlds been built, and at the birth of a child or a star there is pain.

More than this, there is about sorrow an intense, an extraordinary reality. I have said of myself that I was one who stood in symbolic relations to the art and culture of my age. There is not

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Legend of Montrose by Walter Scott:

from his energetic and uncontrollable disposition, and from an opinion generally entertained and encouraged by himself that he holds communion with supernatural beings, and can predict future events, the clan pay a much greater degree of deference to him than even to his brother, who is a bold-hearted rattling Highlander, but with nothing which can possibly rival the extraordinary character of his younger brother."

"Such a character," said Anderson, "cannot but have the deepest effect on the minds of a Highland host. We must secure Allan, my lord, at all events. What between his bravery and his second sight--"

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 Salome by Oscar Wilde:

dedans il y a des Juifs de Jerusalem qui se dechirent e cause de leurs ridicules ceremonies, et des barbares qui boivent toujours et jettent leur vin sur les dalles, et des Grecs de Smyrne avec leurs yeux peints et leurs joues fardees, et leurs cheveux frises en spirales, et des Egyptiens, silencieux, subtils, avec leurs ongles de jade et leurs manteaux bruns, et des Romains avec leur brutalite, leur lourdeur, leurs gros mots. Ah! que je deteste les Romains! Ce sont des gens communs, et ils se donnent des airs de grands seigneurs.

LE JEUNE SYRIEN. Ne voulez-vous pas vous asseoir, princesse?

LE PAGE D'HERODIAS. Pourquoi lui parler? Pourquoi la regarder? . .