Today's Stichomancy for Voltaire

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Black Dwarf by Walter Scott:

measures. A place of rendezvous was appointed, at which all agreed to meet early on the ensuing day, with such followers and friends to the cause as each could collect around him. Several of the guests retired to make the necessary preparations; and Ellieslaw made a formal apology to the others, who, with Westburnflat and the old smuggler, continued to ply the bottle stanchly, for leaving the head of the table, as he must necessarily hold a separate and sober conference with the coadjutors whom they had associated with him in the command. The apology was the more readily accepted, as he prayed them, at the same time, to continue to amuse themselves with such refreshments

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson:

Or with a reindeer-sled, explore The colder countries round the door.

When to go out, my nurse doth wrap Me in my comforter and cap; The cold wind burns my face, and blows Its frosty pepper up my nose.

Black are my steps on silver sod; Thick blows my frosty breath abroad; And tree and house, and hill and lake, Are frosted like a wedding cake.

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A Child's Garden of Verses

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Night and Day by Virginia Woolf:

crucifixes standing upon cairns of serpentine stone upon the mantelpiece. His children had a great respect for him, credited him with far more learning than he actually possessed, and saw that his habits were not interfered with, if possible. Like most people who do things methodically, the Rector himself had more strength of purpose and power of self-sacrifice than of intellect or of originality. On cold and windy nights he rode off to visit sick people, who might need him, without a murmur; and by virtue of doing dull duties punctually, he was much employed upon committees and local Boards and Councils; and at this period of his life (he was sixty-eight) he was beginning to be commiserated by tender old ladies for the extreme leanness of

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 Blix by Frank Norris:

wind of a little river schooner that sunk fifty years before his time in one of the big South American rivers, during a flood--I heard of this myself. Schooner went down and was buried twenty feet under mud and sand; and since that time--you know how the big rivers act--the whole blessed course of the river has changed at that point, and the schooner is on dry land, or rather twenty feet under it, and as sound as the day she was chartered." "Well?" "Well, have it that when she sank she had aboard of her a cargo of