Today's Stichomancy for Robert Anton Wilson

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac:

one there, everything must be at an end between you and me.'

"The extraordinary dignity of his wife's attitude filled him with deep esteem for her, and inspired him with one of those resolves which need only a grander stage to become immortal.

" 'No, Josephine,' he said, 'I will not open it. In either event we should be parted for ever. Listen; I know all the purity of your soul, I know you lead a saintly life, and would not commit a deadly sin to save your life.'--At these words Madame de Merret looked at her husband with a haggard stare.--'See, here is your crucifix,' he went on. 'Swear to me before God that there is no one in there; I will believe you--I will never open that door.'

La Grande Breteche

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

was shortening his way homeward by clambering here where there was no road, and in opposition to express orders that no path was to be made there. Tangs had momentarily stopped to take a pinch of snuff; but observing Mrs. Charmond gazing at him, he hastened to get over the top out of hail. His precipitancy made him miss his footing, and he rolled like a barrel to the bottom, his snuffbox rolling in front of him.

Her indefinite, idle, impossible passion for Fitzpiers; her constitutional cloud of misery; the sorrowful drops that still hung upon her eyelashes, all made way for the incursive mood started by the spectacle. She burst into an immoderate fit of

The Woodlanders

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Somebody's Little Girl by Martha Young:

something sweet--something away off beyond what the band was playing, so she just clapped her hands and laughed out loud, and said over and over as if it were a little song:

``Bessie Bell! Bessie, Bessie, Bessie Bell!''

But the lady at her side looked down at the child as if she were afraid. Bessie Bell knew how sorrowful it was to be afraid, so she stopped patting her hands and laughing,--for she didn't know why she had begun to do it--and she laid her hand again on the lady's hand, just because she knew how sorrowful it was to be afraid.

But Bessie Bell could not see anything to be afraid of: the band was playing just as gaily as ever, and the children, and the nurses, and

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 Pocket Diary Found in the Snow by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner:

my father has willed it to various charitable institutions. I have no relatives, at least none who could inherit my money. I had never harmed any one; who can wish for my death?

"There is somebody with her, somebody was listening at the door. I have a feeling as if I was being watched. And yet - I examined the door, but there is no crack anywhere and the key is in the lock. Still I seem to feel a burning glance resting on me. Ah! the parrot! is this another delusion? Oh God, let it end soon! I am not yet quite insane, but all these unknown dangers around me will drive me mad. I must fight against them.

"Thursday. They brought me back my travelling bag. My attendant