Today's Stichomancy for Andrew Carnegie

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Mistress Wilding by Rafael Sabatini:

sound deep in his throat before he found words.

"Give me one minute, sir - one minute," he begged Wentworth. "I ask no more than that."

Wentworth was a gentleman and not ill-natured. But he was a soldier and had received his orders. He hesitated between the instincts of the two conditions. And what time he did so there came a clatter of hoofs without to resolve him. It was Feversham departing.

"You shall have your minute, sir," said he. "More I dare not give you, as you can see.

"From my heart I thank you," answered Mr. Wilding, and from the gratitude of his tone you might have inferred that it was his life

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche:

For that hour do I now wait: for first must the signs come unto me that it is MINE hour--namely, the laughing lion with the flock of doves.

Meanwhile do I talk to myself as one who hath time. No one telleth me anything new, so I tell myself mine own story.

When I came unto men, then found I them resting on an old infatuation: all of them thought they had long known what was good and bad for men.

An old wearisome business seemed to them all discourse about virtue; and he who wished to sleep well spake of "good" and "bad" ere retiring to rest.

This somnolence did I disturb when I taught that NO ONE YET KNOWETH what is good and bad:--unless it be the creating one!

Thus Spake Zarathustra

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson:

or the important truths of its gospel - would have proved by far the greatest treasure.

[Monday, 2nd July]

In walking over the workyard at Arbroath this morning, the writer found that the stones of the course immediately under the cornice were all in hand, and that a week's work would now finish the whole, while the intermediate courses lay ready numbered and marked for shipping to the rock. Among other subjects which had occupied his attention to-day was a visit from some of the relations of George Dall, a young man who had been impressed near Dundee in the month of February

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 Bride of Lammermoor by Walter Scott:

old Lady Girnington dies."

"Did you ever hear the expression of the English divine?" said Ravenswood--"'Hell is paved with good intentions,'--as much as to say, they are more often formed than executed."

"Well," replied Bucklaw, "but I will begin this blessed night, and have determined not to drink above one quart of wine, unless your claret be of extraordinary quality."

"You will find little to tempt you at Wolf's Crag," said the Master. "I know not that I can promise you more than the shelter of my roof; all, and more than all, our stock of wine and provisions was exhausted at the late occasion."

The Bride of Lammermoor