Today's Stichomancy for Butch Cassidy

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane:

Perspiration streamed down the youth's face, which was soiled like that of a weeping urchin. He frequently, with a nervous movement, wiped his eyes with his coat sleeve. His mouth was still a little ways open.

He got the one glance at the foe-swarming field in front of him, and instantly ceased to de- bate the question of his piece being loaded. Be- fore he was ready to begin--before he had an- nounced to himself that he was about to fight-- he threw the obedient, well-balanced rifle into

The Red Badge of Courage

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:

just as the cough of Ginevra's female servant gave her mistress assurance to admit the freedoms of Lancelot. See Hell, Canto V. 124.

v. 23. The fold.] Florence, of which John the Baptist was the patron saint.

v. 31. From the day.] From the Incarnation to the birth of Cacciaguida, the planet Mars had returned five hundred and fifty-three times to the constellation of Leo, with which it is supposed to have a congenial influence. His birth may, therefore, be placed about 1106.

v. 38. The last.] The city was divided into four compartments.

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 The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry:

End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of THE GIFT OF THE MAGI.

The Gift of the Magi

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 Faraday as a Discoverer by John Tyndall:

writings; while his experiments and reasonings on the forms and phenomena of electrical discharge are of imperishable importance.

Footnotes to Chapter 8

[1] Newton's third letter to Bentley.

[2] Had Sir Charles Wheatstone been induced to resume his measurements, varying the substances through which, and the conditions under which, the current is propagated, he might have rendered great service to science, both theoretic and experimental.

Chapter 9.

Rest needed--visit to Switzerland.

The last of these memoirs was dated from the Royal Institution in