Today's Stichomancy for Simon Bolivar

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by George Bernard Shaw:

to bombard Napoleon III from his paper battery in Jersey. It was also easy to hold up Felix Pyat and Delescluze as men of much loftier ideals than Thiers and Gallifet; but the one fact that could not be denied was that when it came to actual shooting, it was Gallifet who got Delescluze shot and not Delescluze who got Gallifet shot, and that when it came to administering the affairs of France, Thiers could in one way or another get it done, whilst Pyat could neither do it nor stop talking and allow somebody else to do it. True, the penalty of following Thiers was to be exploited by the landlord and capitalist; but then the penalty of following Pyat was to get shot like a mad dog, or at best get

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

strength to walk through sand.

"I have boots," she said. "Let us go," and she pointed to the tower of Batz, which arrested the eye by its immense pile placed there like a pyramid; but a slender, delicately outlined pyramid, a pyramid so poetically ornate that the imagination figured in it the earliest ruin of a great Asiatic city.

We advanced a few steps and sat down upon the portion of a large rock which was still in the shade. But it was now eleven o'clock, and the shadow, which ceased at our feet, was disappearing rapidly.

"How beautiful this silence!" she said to me; "and how the depth of it is deepened by the rhythmic quiver of the wave upon the shore."

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell:

news he had just heard, he smiled, knowing she was enjoining silence and making him one in a pleasant conspiracy.

"You run up and fix me some dry clothes, Mammy," she said. "And some hot tea."

"Lawd, yo' new dress is plum ruint," grumbled Mammy. "Ah gwine have a time dryin' it an' brushin' it, so it'll be fit ter be wo' ter de weddin' ternight."

She went into the house and Scarlett leaned close to Frank and whispered: "Do come to supper tonight. We are so lonesome. And we're going to the wedding afterward. Do be our escort! And, please don't say anything to Aunt Pitty about--about Suellen. It

Gone With the Wind

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 Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator:

affirms the contrary, if the act appear to you unfit even to be mentioned. Or do you think that Orestes, had he been in his senses and knew what was best for him to do, would ever have dared to venture on such a crime?

ALCIBIADES: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: Nor would any one else, I fancy?

ALCIBIADES: No.

SOCRATES: That ignorance is bad then, it would appear, which is of the best and does not know what is best?

ALCIBIADES: So I think, at least.

SOCRATES: And both to the person who is ignorant and everybody else?

ALCIBIADES: Yes.