Today's Stichomancy for Rebecca Gayheart

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Plain Tales from the Hills by Rudyard Kipling:

comes upon Trejago in the night now and again, and keeps him company till the morning. One special feature of the case is that he does not know where lies the front of Durga Charan's house. It may open on to a courtyard common to two or more houses, or it may lie behind any one of the gates of Jitha Megji's bustee. Trejago cannot tell. He cannot get Bisesa--poor little Bisesa--back again. He has lost her in the City, where each man's house is as guarded and as unknowable as the grave; and the grating that opens into Amir Nath's Gully has been walled up.

But Trejago pays his calls regularly, and is reckoned a very decent sort of man.

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from When the World Shook by H. Rider Haggard:

doubtless because I am unworthy of such a glorious end."

"Then it is lucky that Providence is a good shot with a pistol. Stop talking nonsense and listen. If those were paths worn by feet they would run to the edge of the rock. They do not. They begin there in that gentle depression and slope upwards somewhat steeply. The air machines, which were evidently large, lit in the depression, possibly as a bird does, and then ran on wheels or sledge skids along the grooves to the air-shed in the mountain. Come to the cave and you will see."

"Not till we have breakfast," said Bastin. "I will get out a pig. As a matter of fact, I had no supper last night, as I was

When the World Shook

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from U. S. Project Trinity Report by Carl Maag and Steve Rohrer:

into the test area to monitor exposure rates (1; 10).

Two members of the Site Monitoring Group, a monitor and a physician with radiological safety training, were assigned to each shelter. The supervising monitor was stationed at the Base Camp and was in radio and telephone communication with all three shelters and the offsite ground and aerial survey teams. Before any personnel were allowed to leave the shelter areas, a radiological safety monitor and a military policeman from each shelter advanced along the roads to Broadway to check radiation levels. They wore respirators to prevent them from inhaling radioactive material (1; 10).

Since it was expected that any dust from the cloud would fall on one

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 Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac:

victor, strength enough to tame the girl; but, at the same time, urged beyond that line where the soul is mistress over herself, he lost himself in these delicious limboes, which the vulgar call so foolishly "the imaginary regions." He was tender, kind, and confidential. He affected Paquita almost to madness.

"Why should we not go to Sorrento, to Nice, to Chiavari, and pass all our life so? Will you?" he asked of Paquita, in a penetrating voice.

"Was there need to say to me: 'Will you'?" she cried. "Have I a will? I am nothing apart from you, except in so far as I am a pleasure for you. If you would choose a retreat worthy of us, Asia is the only country where love can unfold his wings. . . ."

The Girl with the Golden Eyes