Today's Stichomancy for Alessandra Ambrosio

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells:

hostility to Chinamen or hostility to their practical enslavement no student of the General Election of 1906 has ever been able to determine. Certainly one of the most effective posters on our side displayed a hideous yellow face, just that and nothing more. There was not even a legend to it. How it impressed the electorate we did not know, but that it impressed the electorate profoundly there can be no disputing.

Kinghamstead was one of the earliest constituencies fought, and we came back--it must have been Saturday--triumphant but very tired, to our house in Radnor Square. In the train we read the first

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac:

this world, so that the pardoned spirit may enter heaven. Marie cried when they threw the earth on his mother's coffin; he understood that he should see her no more.

A simple, wooden cross, set up to mark her grave, bore this inscription, due to the cure of Saint-Cyr:--

HERE LIES AN UNHAPPY WOMAN, WHO DIED AT THE AGE OF THIRTY-SIX. KNOWN IN HEAVEN BY THE NAME OF AUGUSTA. Pray for her!

When all was over, the children came back to La Grenadiere to take a

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo:

upon them, guide them as well as they can, but this experiment is so dangerous that it hath cost many of these bold adventurers their lives. This is not all the danger, for there is yet more to be apprehended from the unwholesomeness of the air, and the vapours which arise from the scorched earth at the fall of the first showers, than from the torrents and rivers. Even they who shelter themselves in houses find great difficulty to avoid the diseases that proceed from the noxious qualities of these vapours. From the beginning of June to that of September it rains more or less every day. The morning is generally fair and bright, but about two hours after noon the sky is clouded, and immediately succeeds a violent

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 Falk by Joseph Conrad:

girl, or to speak to her, or even to look at her in any marked way. Nothing could be clearer. But, as his own idea of--let us say--courting, seemed to consist precisely in sitting silently for hours in the vicinity of the beloved object, that line of argu- ment inspired him with distrust. Staring down his extended legs he let out a grunt--as much as to say, "That's all very fine, but you can't throw dust in MY eyes."

At last I was exasperated into saying, "Why don't you put the matter at rest by talking to Her-

Falk