Today's Stichomancy for L. Ron Hubbard

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Essays of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson:

women; and I think they take a special pleasure in the legend of the northern quarter of the town, called L'Anglade, because there the English free-lances were arrested and driven back by the potency of a little Virgin Mary on the wall.

From time to time a market is held, and the town has a season of revival; cattle and pigs are stabled in the streets; and pickpockets have been known to come all the way from Lyons for the occasion. Every Sunday the country folk throng in with daylight to buy apples, to attend mass, and to visit one of the wine-shops, of which there are no fewer than fifty in this little town. Sunday wear for the men is a green tailcoat of some coarse sort of drugget, and usually a

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Land of Footprints by Stewart Edward White:

pastoral natives will so annoy the buffalo by shoutings and other means, whenever they appear near the tame cattle, that the huge beasts will come practically nocturnal. In that case only the rankest luck will avail to get a man a chance in the open. The herds cling to cover until after sundown and just at dusk; and they return again very soon after the first streaks of dawn. If the hunter just happens to be at the exact spot, he may get a twilight shot when the glimmering ivory of his front sight is barely visible. Otherwise he must go into the thicket.

As an illustration of the first condition might be instanced an afternoon on the Tana. The weather was very hot. We had sent

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

and as Hermann's excitement increased it made me comfortingly aware of my own calmness and supe- riority. But it occurred to me while I listened to his revilings, that after all the good man had come up in the tug. There perhaps--since he must come to town--he had no option. But evidently he had had a drink with Falk, either accepted or offered. How was that? So I checked him by saying loftily that I hoped he would make Falk pay for every penny of the damage.

"That's it! That's it! Go for him," called out

Falk

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 Lucile by Owen Meredith:

At the door of a convent in Paris had parted. But later, once more, with her mistress she tarried, When the girl, by that grim maiden aunt, had been married To a dreary old Count, who had sullenly died, With no claim on her tears--she had wept as a bride. Said Lord Alfred, "Your mistress expects me."

The crone Oped the drawing-room door, and there left him alone.

O'er the soft atmosphere of this temple of grace Rested silence and perfume. No sound reach'd the place.