Today's Stichomancy for Joan of Arc

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac:

Radcliffe, in which the hero traverses the cold, sombre, and uninhabited saloons of some sad and desert spot.

At last the mulatto opened the door of a /salon/. The condition of the old furniture and the dilapidated curtains with which the room was adorned gave it the air of the reception-room of a house of ill fame. There was the same pretension to elegance, and the same collection of things in bad taste, of dust and dirt. Upon a sofa covered with red Utrecht velvet, by the side of a smoking hearth, the fire of which was buried in ashes, sat an old, poorly dressed woman, her head capped by one of those turbans which English women of a certain age have invented and which would have a mighty success in China, where the

The Girl with the Golden Eyes

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Miracle Mongers and Their Methods by Harry Houdini:

Hellebore Same as for aconite. Hyoscyamus Same as for aconite. Iodine Give starch. Lobelia Same as for aconite. Lead Same as for calomel. Matches Induce vomiting. Give magnesia and mucilage. NO OIL. Mercury Same as for calomel. Morphine Spasms may be quieted by inhaling ether. Nitric Acid Induce vomiting. Give Carbonate of Magnesia, or lime-water.

Miracle Mongers and Their Methods

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

of his own claims, and little concerned about the feelings of others.

Contrary to the usual course of things, Mr. Elton's wanting to pay his addresses to her had sunk him in her opinion. His professions and his proposals did him no service. She thought nothing of his attachment, and was insulted by his hopes. He wanted to marry well, and having the arrogance to raise his eyes to her, pretended to be in love; but she was perfectly easy as to his not suffering any disappointment that need be cared for. There had been no real affection either in his language or manners. Sighs and fine words had been given in abundance; but she could hardly devise any set of expressions, or fancy any tone of voice,

Emma

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 Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson:

Letter: TO MRS. SITWELL

MENTONE, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 1873.

MY DEAR FRIEND, - I sat a long while up among the olive yards to- day at a favourite corner, where one has a fair view down the valley and on to the blue floor of the sea. I had a Horace with me, and read a little; but Horace, when you try to read him fairly under the open heaven, sounds urban, and you find something of the escaped townsman in his descriptions of the country, just as somebody said that Morris's sea-pieces were all taken from the coast. I tried for long to hit upon some language that might catch ever so faintly the indefinable shifting colour of olive leaves;