Today's Stichomancy for Frederick II

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Hero of Our Time by M.Y. Lermontov:

She rose, sat down beside us, and brightened up . . . and it was only at two o'clock in the morning that we remembered that the doctors had ordered her to go to bed at eleven.

CHAPTER X

13th June.

HALF an hour before the ball, Grushnitski presented himself to me in the full splendour of the uniform of the Line infantry. Attached to his third button was a little bronze chain, on which hung a double lorgnette. Epaulettes of

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

bereft of tobacco for our pipes, it struck us that for some days we had been eating bread without any kind of butter.

Great was our distress.

"No tobacco!" said the Doctor.

"No cloak!" said the Keeper of the Seals.

"Ah, you rascals, you would dress as the postillion de Longjumeau, you would appear as Debardeurs, sup in the morning, and breakfast at night at Very's--sometimes even at the /Rocher de Cancale/.--Dry bread for you, my boys! Why," said I, in a big bass voice, "you deserve to sleep under the bed, you are not worthy to lie in it--"

"Yes, yes; but, Keeper of the Seals, there is no more tobacco!" said

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Poor and Proud by Oliver Optic:

most skilful treatment. A physician does not hold the issues of life and death; he can only assist nature, as the patient may by a cheerful view of his case. This is not your old complaint; you have taken cold, and have considerable fever; but I think it is a very hopeful case."

The return of Katy interrupted the conversation; but the doctor's opinion was immediately imparted to her, and it sent a thrill of joy to her heart.

"I was low-spirited this morning, Katy," said Mrs. Redburn, when the physician had gone. "I really felt as though my end was rapidly approaching. I am sorry I mentioned my thoughts to you."

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 Rivers to the Sea by Sara Teasdale:

Then with the ebbing I should drift and be Less than the smallest shell along the shoal, Less than the sea-gulls calling to the sea.

THE RIVER

I CAME from the sunny valleys And sought for the open sea, For I thought in its gray expanses My peace would come to me.

I came at last to the ocean And found it wild and black, And I cried to the windless valleys,