Today's Stichomancy for H. P. Lovecraft

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Rewards and Fairies by Rudyard Kipling:

Pit. The children heard the sheep-bells and Young jim's busy bark above them, and they scrambled up the slope to the level.

'We let you have your sleep out,' said Mr Dudeney, as the flock scattered before them. 'It's making for tea-time now.'

'Look what I've found, said Dan, and held up a little blue flint arrow-head as fresh as though it had been chipped that very day.

'Oh,' said Mr Dudeney, 'the closeter you be to the turf the more you're apt to see things. I've found 'em often. Some says the fairies made 'em, but I says they was made by folks like ourselves - only a goodish time back. They're lucky to keep. Now, you couldn't ever have slept - not to any profit - among your father's

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Laches by Plato:

about the eyes or the ears, or about the best mode of giving sight and hearing to them.

LACHES: That is true, Socrates.

SOCRATES: And are not our two friends, Laches, at this very moment inviting us to consider in what way the gift of virtue may be imparted to their sons for the improvement of their minds?

LACHES: Very true.

SOCRATES: Then must we not first know the nature of virtue? For how can we advise any one about the best mode of attaining something of which we are wholly ignorant?

LACHES: I do not think that we can, Socrates.

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato:

sick or when we are in health? And here we must be careful in our answer, or we shall come to grief.

PROTARCHUS: How will that be?

SOCRATES: Why, because we might be tempted to answer, 'When we are in health.'

PROTARCHUS: Yes, that is the natural answer.

SOCRATES: Well, but are not those pleasures the greatest of which mankind have the greatest desires?

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: And do not people who are in a fever, or any similar illness, feel cold or thirst or other bodily affections more intensely? Am I not

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 Ursula by Honore de Balzac:

flowers; this was separated from the kitchen by the well of the staircase. Communication with the kitchen was had through a little pantry built behind the staircase, the kitchen itself looking into the courtyard through windows with iron railings. There were two chambers on the next floor, and above them, attic rooms sheathed in wood, which were fairly habitable. After examining the house rapidly, and observing that it was covered with trellises from top to bottom, on the side of the courtyard as well as on that to the garden,--which ended in a terrace overlooking the river and adorned with pottery vases,--the doctor remarked:--

"Levrault-Levrault must have spend a good deal of money here."