Today's Stichomancy for Oscar Wilde

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy:

the point of suicide, and my wife made several attempts to poison herself.

CHAPTER XX.

"In order that you may understand me, I must tell you how this happened. We were living along, and all seemed well. Suddenly we began to talk of the children's education. I do not remember what words either of us uttered, but a discussion began, reproaches, leaps from one subject to another. 'Yes, I know it. It has been so for a long time.' . . . 'You said that.' . . . 'No, I did not say that.' . . . 'Then I lie?' etc.

The Kreutzer Sonata

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

"Then forward, march! you can't make omelets without breaking eggs."

And the grenadier of the guard urged the horses over men and bivouacs with bloody wheels and a double line of corpses on either side of them. We must do him the justice to say that he never spared his breath in shouting in stentorian tones,--

"Look out there, carrion!"

"Poor wretches!" cried the major.

"Pooh! that or the cold, that or the cannon," said the grenadier, prodding the horses, and urging them on.

A catastrophe, which might well have happened to them much sooner, put a stop to their advance. The carriage was overturned.

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen:

voluntarily to give her hand to another!--and THAT other, a man who had suffered no less than herself under the event of a former attachment, whom, two years before, she had considered too old to be married,--and who still sought the constitutional safeguard of a flannel waistcoat!

But so it was. Instead of falling a sacrifice to an irresistible passion, as once she had fondly flattered herself with expecting,--instead of remaining even for ever with her mother, and finding her only pleasures in retirement and study, as afterwards in her more calm and sober judgment she had determined on,--

Sense and Sensibility

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 When a Man Marries by Mary Roberts Rinehart:

"So do I," I retorted, jerking the thread.

"Where is she now?"

"Looking for more of these." I indicated the garment over the pillow, and he wiggled. Please don't squirm," I said coldly. "You will wear out your--lingerie, and I will have to mend them."

He sat very still for five minutes, when I discovered that I had put the patch in crosswise instead of lengthwise and that it would not fit. As I jerked it out he sneezed.

"Or sneeze," I added venomously. "You will tear your buttons off, and I will have to sew them on."

Jim rose wrathfully. "Don't sit, don't sneeze'," he repeated.