Today's Stichomancy for Mark Twain

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

Etienne's gifts by nosegays of her own,--nosegays which told the wise old doctor that his ignorant daughter already knew enough. The material ignorance of these two lovers was like a dark background on which the faintest lines of their all-spiritual intercourse were traced with exquisite delicacy, like the red, pure outlines of Etruscan figures. Their slightest words brought a flood of ideas, because each was the fruit of their long meditations. Incapable of boldly looking forward, each beginning seemed to them an end. Though absolutely free, they were imprisoned in their own simplicity, which would have been disheartening had either given a meaning to their confused desires. They were poets and poem both. Music, the most

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Somebody's Little Girl by Martha Young:

``Little girl,'' said the lady, ``why do you say, Bessie Bell--?''

When the lady said that it seemed to Bessie Bell that she heard something sweet--something away off beyond what the band was playing, so she just clapped her hands and laughed out loud, and said over and over as if it were a little song:

``Bessie Bell! Bessie, Bessie, Bessie Bell!''

But the lady at her side looked down at the child as if she were afraid. Bessie Bell knew how sorrowful it was to be afraid, so she stopped patting her hands and laughing,--for she didn't know why she had begun to do it--and she laid her hand again on the lady's hand, just because she knew how sorrowful it was to be afraid.

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from God The Invisible King by H. G. Wells:

and muse. It may come upon the sinking ship or in the tumult of the battle. There is no saying when it may not come to us. . . . But after it has come our lives are changed, God is with us and there is no more doubt of God. Thereafter one goes about the world like one who was lonely and has found a lover, like one who was perplexed and has found a solution. One is assured that there is a Power that fights with us against the confusion and evil within us and without. There comes into the heart an essential and enduring happiness and courage.

There is but one God, there is but one true religious experience, but under a multitude of names, under veils and darknesses, God has

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 Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac:

to another leading into a bedroom and bolted it; then he said to the stranger:

"Speak lower, monsieur," and he studied the sham Englishman as he asked him, "What do you want with me?"

"Dear me," said William Barker, "every one for himself in this world. You had the money of that rascal d'Estourny.--Be quite easy, I have not come to ask for it; but that scoundrel, who deserves hanging, between you and me, gave me these bills, saying that there might be some chance of recovering the money; and as I do not choose to prosecute in my own name, he told me you would not refuse to back them."