Today's Stichomancy for Ludwig Wittgenstein

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare:

To love's alarms it will not ope the gate: 424 Dismiss your vows, your feigned tears, your flattery; For where a heart is hard they make no battery.'

'What! canst thou talk?' quoth she, 'hast thou a tongue? O! would thou hadst not, or I had no hearing; 428 Thy mermaid's voice hath done me double wrong; I had my load before, now press'd with bearing: Melodious discord, heavenly tune, harsh-sounding, Ear's deep-sweet music, and heart's deep-sore wounding.

'Had I no eyes but ears, my ears would love 433 That inward beauty and invisible;

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Oakdale Affair by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

the hallway, and soon they heard it descending the stairs.

Sighs of relief escaped more than a single pair of lips. "IT didn't hear me," whispered the girl.

Bridge laughed. "We're a nice lot of babies seeing things at night," he scoffed.

"If you're so nervy why don't you go down an' see wot it is?" asked one of the late arrivals.

"I believe I shall," replied Bridge and pulled the bed away from the door.

Instantly a chorus of protests arose, the girl and The

The Oakdale Affair

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from King Henry VI by William Shakespeare:

Of the Lord Bonville on your new wife's son, And leave your brothers to go speed elsewhere.

KING EDWARD. Alas, poor Clarence! is it for a wife That thou art malcontent? I will provide thee.

CLARENCE. In choosing for yourself you show'd your judgment, Which being shallow you shall give me leave To play the broker in mine own behalf; And to that end I shortly mind to leave you.

KING EDWARD.

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 Emma by Jane Austen:

with a sigh. "I am afraid I am sometimes very fanciful and troublesome."

"My dearest papa! You do not think I could mean you, or suppose Mr. Knightley to mean you. What a horrible idea! Oh no! I meant only myself. Mr. Knightley loves to find fault with me, you know-- in a joke--it is all a joke. We always say what we like to one another."

Mr. Knightley, in fact, was one of the few people who could see faults in Emma Woodhouse, and the only one who ever told her of them: and though this was not particularly agreeable to Emma herself, she knew it would be so much less so to her father, that she would not have him really suspect such a circumstance as her not being thought perfect by every body.

Emma