Today's Stichomancy for Friedrich Nietzsche

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

and cravens?" he demanded presently in sneering tones.

From among those who had not been of the searching party a chieftain arose and turned a scowling face upon O-Tar.

"The jeddak knows,'' he said, "that in the annals of Manator her jeddaks have ever been accounted the bravest of her warriors. Where my jeddak leads I will follow, nor may any jeddak call me a coward or a craven unless I refuse to go where he dares to go. I have spoken."

After he had resumed his seat there was a painful silence, for all knew that the speaker had challenged the courage of O-Tar the Jeddak of Manator and all awaited the reply of their ruler. In

The Chessmen of Mars

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri:

Upgliding, tied them, riveting itself So close, it took from them the power to move. Pistoia! Ah Pistoia! why dost doubt To turn thee into ashes, cumb'ring earth No longer, since in evil act so far Thou hast outdone thy seed? I did not mark, Through all the gloomy circles of the' abyss, Spirit, that swell'd so proudly 'gainst his God, Not him, who headlong fell from Thebes. He fled, Nor utter'd more; and after him there came A centaur full of fury, shouting, "Where

The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary)

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland:

confidential instructions came from the palace to massacre the foreigners, in order to gain time they pretended to believe that no such orders could have come from the throne. They must be forgeries of the Boxers. They therefore refused to believe them until they had sent their own special messenger all the way to Peking to get the edict from the hands of Her Majesty and bring it to them in their provinces. This messenger was also secretly instructed to find out what the contents of the edict were, and if it was contrary to the desires of the Governor, he was to dilly-dally on the way home until the Boxer trouble was ended or until the foreigners had all been removed from the territory. 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 On Revenues by Xenophon:

hegemony[14] at our discretion, not as driven to such submission, but in requital of kindly treatment. And to-day, owing to the chaos[15] which reigns in Hellas, if I mistake not, an opportunity has fallen to this city of winning back our fellow-Hellenes without pain or peril or expense of any sort. It is given to us to try and harmonise states which are at war with one another: it is given to us to reconcile the differences of rival factions within those states themselves, wherever existing.

[9] Lit. "her hegemony for the city," B.C. 476.

[10] "And first of all."

[11] See Thuc. i. 96.