Today's Stichomancy for Denise Richards

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Hiero by Xenophon:

they assume."

[14] "To have played his part in counsel." See "Anab." passim, and M. Taine, "Essais de Critique," "Xenophon," p. 128.

[15] Lit. "they do not indulge in false additions, pretending to have put more enemies to death than actually fell."

[16] Cf. "Hipparch," viii. 11; "Cyrop." VIII. iii. 25; "Thuc." i. 49.

But the tyrant, when he forebodes, or possibly perceives in actual fact, some opposition brewing, and puts the suspects[17] to the sword, knows he will not thereby promote the welfare of the state collectively. The cold clear fact is, he will have fewer subjects to rule over.[18] How can he show a cheerful countenance?[19] how magnify

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Soul of a Bishop by H. G. Wells:

a lot of things in England and Europe seemed like a comedy or a farce, a bad joke that one tolerated. One tried half consciously, half avoiding the knowledge of what one was doing, to keep one's own little circle and life civilized. The war shook all those ideas of isolation, all that sort of evasion, down. The world is the rightful kingdom of God; we had left its affairs to kings and emperors and suchlike impostors, to priests and profit-seekers and greedy men. We were genteel condoners. The war has ended that. It thrusts into all our lives. It brings death so close-- A fortnight ago twenty-seven people were killed and injured within a mile of this by Zeppelin bombs.... Every one loses some

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens:

each house shuts in; that here are children coiled together in their beds, here youth, here age, here poverty, here wealth, all equal in their sleep, and all at rest; to have nothing in common with the slumbering world around, not even sleep, Heaven's gift to all its creatures, and be akin to nothing but despair; to feel, by the wretched contrast with everything on every hand, more utterly alone and cast away than in a trackless desert; this is a kind of suffering, on which the rivers of great cities close full many a time, and which the solitude in crowds alone awakens.

The miserable man paced up and down the streets--so long, so wearisome, so like each other--and often cast a wistful look

Barnaby Rudge

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 Gorgias by Plato:

they will obtain an immortality of fame, or that they will have crowns of glory in another world, when their enemies and persecutors will be proportionably tormented. Men are found in a few instances to do what is right, without reference to public opinion or to consequences. And we regard them as happy on this ground only, much as Socrates' friends in the opening of the Phaedo are described as regarding him; or as was said of another, 'they looked upon his face as upon the face of an angel.' We are not concerned to justify this idealism by the standard of utility or public opinion, but merely to point out the existence of such a sentiment in the better part of human nature.

The idealism of Plato is founded upon this sentiment. He would maintain