Today's Stichomancy for Claire Forlani

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The House of Dust by Conrad Aiken:

Till silence swept the place. Why had you gone? . . . The door, perhaps, mistaken . . . You would go elsewhere. The deep walls were shaken.

A certain rose-leaf--sent without intention-- Became, with time, a woven web of fire-- She wore it, and was warm. A certain hurried glance, let fall at parting, Became, with time, the flashings of a storm.

Yet, there was nothing asked, no hint to tell you Of secret idols carved in secret chambers From all you did and said.

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell:

Flora and fauna are a conspicuous feature of Far Asiatic art, because they enter as details of the subject-matter of the artist's thoughts and day-dreams. These birds and flowers are his sujets de genre. Where we should select a phase of human life for effective isolation, they choose instead a bit of nature. A spray of grass or a twig of cherry-blossoms is motif enough for them. To their thought its beauty is amply suggestive. For to the Far Oriental all nature is sympathetically sentient. His admiration, instead of being centred on man, embraces the universe. His art reflects it.

Leaving out of consideration, for the moment, minor though still important distinctions in tone, treatment, and technique, the great

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Enoch Arden, &c. by Alfred Tennyson:

comed to the 'All; I done my duty by Squoire an' I done my duty by all. XV. Squoire's in Lunnon, an' summun I reckons 'ull 'a to wroite, For who's to howd the lond ater mea thot muddles ma quoit; Sartin-sewer I bea, thot a weant niver give it to Joanes,

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 Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald:

things that go to make civilization--oh, science and art, and all that. Do you see?"

There was something pathetic in his concentration, as if his complacency, more acute than of old, was not enough to him any more. When, almost immediately, the telephone rang inside and the butler left the porch Daisy seized upon the momentary interruption and leaned toward me.

"I'll tell you a family secret," she whispered enthusiastically. "It's about the butler's nose. Do you want to hear about the butler's nose?"

"That's why I came over to-night."

"Well, he wasn't always a butler; he used to be the silver polisher for some people in New York that had a silver service for two hundred people.

The Great Gatsby