Today's Stichomancy for Voltaire

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Salome by Oscar Wilde:

Pensez-vous que je sois comme le roi d'Egypte qui ne donne jamais un festin sans montrer un cadavre e ses hotes? Enfin, qui est-ce? Je ne veux pas le regarder.

PREMIER SOLDAT. C'est notre capitaine, Seigneur. C'est le jeune Syrien que vous avez fait capitaine il y a trois jours seulement.

HERODE. Je n'ai donne aucun ordre de le tuer.

SECOND SOLDAT. Il s'est tue lui-meme, Seigneur.

HERODE. Pourquoi? Je l'ai fait capitaine!

SECOND SOLDAT. Nous ne savons pas, Seigneur. Mais il s'est tue lui-meme.

HERODE. Cela me semble etrange. Je pensais qu'il n'y avait que les

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Stories From the Old Attic by Robert Harris:

and procedural rules, but no person succeeded in convincing any other. Soon, therefore, the discussion ceased to remain at this level, but grew rather heated, and shouts and aspersions began to fill the air, with perhaps even a trace of ill will.

"I refuse to allow anyone to bail this boat unless he uses this bucket, which, as any fool can see, is the only true bucket, clearly superior to all others," screamed one.

"And I absolutely refuse to see this boat bailed unless I can take part in the work," yelled another.

Now these passengers all had some interest in seeing the boat bailed, and most hoped that this impasse could be overcome to the

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

She might have answered if she had answered immediately; but she hesitated, and while she did so something happened at the other end of the room which caused her to shift her glance. A green velvet porti; agere suspended in one of the door-ways-- not that through which our friends had passed--was lifted, and Gordon Wright stood there, holding it up, and looking at them. His companions were behind him.

"Ah, here they are!" cried Gordon, in his loud, clear voice.

This appeared to strike Angela Vivian as an interruption, and Bernard saw it very much in the same light.

CHAPTER VIII

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 Ion by Plato:

them will make dithyrambs, another hymns of praise, another choral strains, another epic or iambic verses--and he who is good at one is not good at any other kind of verse: for not by art does the poet sing, but by power divine. Had he learned by rules of art, he would have known how to speak not of one theme only, but of all; and therefore God takes away the minds of poets, and uses them as his ministers, as he also uses diviners and holy prophets, in order that we who hear them may know them to be speaking not of themselves who utter these priceless words in a state of unconsciousness, but that God himself is the speaker, and that through them he is conversing with us. And Tynnichus the Chalcidian affords a striking instance of what I am saying: he wrote nothing that any one would care to