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 The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad:

place him in. I had been told that he regarded me as a rank outsider. He raised not only his eyes, but his eyebrows as well, at the sound I made pulling back my chair.

Captain Giles was at the head of the table. I exchanged a few words of greeting with him and sat down on his left. Stout and pale, with a great shiny dome of a bald forehead and prominent brown eyes, he might have been anything but a seaman. You would not have been surprised to learn that he was an architect. To me (I know

The Shadow Line

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

have taken me fifty. Marry this girl, use your ad- vantage over the entire family--whose influence I well know--and that great personal power with which the Almighty has been so lavish, and you will have the whole weakly garrisoned country un- der your foot before they know where they are, and the Russian settlers pouring in. Spain cannot come to the rescue while this devil Bonaparte is alive, and he is young, and like yourself a favorite of destiny. Those damned Bostonians inherit the grabbing instincts of the too paternal race they have

Rezanov

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Economist by Xenophon:

somewhat lightly handled by us in the previous argument.[3]

[1] {apodeiknuon}, i.e. in presenting the inventory of products for the year. Cf. "Hell." V. iii. 17; "Revenues," ii. 7.

[2] {ede}, at this stage of the discussion.

[3] Or, "that part of the discussion which we ran over in a light and airy fashion," in reference to xiii. 2.

What topic, pray, was that? (he asked).

Soc. You said, if I mistake not, that it was most important to learn the methods of conducting the several processes of husbandry; for, you added, unless a man knows what things he has to do and how to do them, all the care and diligence in the world will stand him in no stead.

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 New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells:

part," I said, "I count on backing on the Liberal side. For the last two years we've been forcing competition in constructive legislation between the parties. The Liberals have not been long in following up our Endowment of Motherhood lead. They'll have to give votes and lip service anyhow. Half the readers of the BLUE WEEKLY, they say, are Liberals. . . .

"I remember talking about things of this sort with old Willersley," I said, "ever so many years ago. It was some place near Locarno, and we looked down the lake that shone weltering--just as now we look over the sea. And then we dreamt in an indistinct featureless way of all that you and I are doing now."