Today's Stichomancy for Pamela Colman Smith

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Little Britain by Washington Irving:

consider him a kind of conjurer, because he has two of three stuffed alligators hanging up in his shop, and several snakes in bottles. He is a great reader of almanacs and newspapers, and is much given to pore over alarming accounts of plots, conspiracies, fires, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions; which last phenomena he considers as signs of the times. He has always some dismal tale of the kind to deal out to his customers, with their doses; and thus at the same time puts both soul and body into an uproar. He is a great believer in omens and predictions; and has the prophecies of Robert Nixon and Mother Shipton by heart. No man can make so much out of an

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Apology by Xenophon:

is just a suspicion of foolhardiness in the arrogancy of his address.[5] We have, however, from the lips of one of his intimate acquaintances, Hermogenes,[6] the son of Hipponicus, an account of him which shows the high demeanour in question to have been altogether in keeping with the master's rational purpose.[7] Hermogenes says that, seeing Socrates discoursing on every topic rather than that of his impending trial, he roundly put it to him whether he ought not to be debating the line of his defence, to which Socrates in the first instance answered: "What! do I not seem to you to have spent my whole life in meditating my defence?" And when Hermogenes asked him, "How?" he added: "By a lifelong persistence in doing nothing wrong, and that

The Apology

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll:

But the slightest approach to a false pretense Was never among my crimes!

"I said it in Hebrew--I said it in Dutch-- I said it in German and Greek: But I wholly forgot (and it vexes me much) That English is what you speak!"

"'Tis a pitiful tale," said the Bellman, whose face Had grown longer at every word: "But, now that you've stated the whole of your case, More debate would be simply absurd.

"The rest of my speech" (he explained to his men)

The Hunting of the Snark

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 Complete Poems of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

Oh beware! her waist is slender, full her bosom is, beware! Look not at the rose and lily on her cheek that shifting play, List not to the voice beloved, whispering like the wind of May.

Now the huntsman's band is ready. Hurrah! over hill and dale! Horns ring, and the hawks right upward to the hall of Odin sail. All the dwellers in the forest seek in fear their cavern homes, But, with spear outstretched before her, after them the Valkyr comes.

. . . . . . . . . .

Then threw Frithiof down his mantle, and upon the greensward spread,