Today's Stichomancy for Leonardo da Vinci

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

score of muskets belched forth their missiles at the fearless girl behind the scant shield of the machine gun. Leaden pellets rained heavily upon her protection, or whizzed threateningly about her head-- and then she got the gun into action.

At the rate of fifty a minute, a stream of projectiles tore into the bow of the prahu when suddenly a richly garbed Malay in the stern rose to his feet waving a white cloth upon the point of his kris. It was the Rajah Muda Saffir--he had seen the girl's face and at the sight of it the blood lust in his breast had been

The Monster Men

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from My Aunt Margaret's Mirror by Walter Scott:

each other--Jemima seeking support in the manly and habitual courage of Lady Bothwell; and she, on the other hand, more agitated than she had expected, endeavouring to fortify herself by the desperate resolution which circumstances had forced her sister to assume. The one perhaps said to herself that her sister never feared anything; and the other might reflect that what so feeble-minded a woman as Jemima did not fear, could not properly be a subject of apprehension to a person of firmness and resolution like her own.

In a few moments the thoughts of both were diverted from their own situation by a strain of music so singularly sweet and solemn

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave by Frederick Douglass:

in good earnest, working for the first time with the hope of reward. The ties that ordinarily bind children to their homes were all suspended in my case. I found no severe trial in my departure. My home was charm- less; it was not home to me; on parting from it, I could not feel that I was leaving any thing which I could have enjoyed by staying. My mother was dead, my grandmother lived far off, so that I seldom saw her. I had two sisters and one brother, that lived in

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave

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 Time Machine by H. G. Wells:

both these days I had the restless feeling of one who shirks an inevitable duty. I felt assured that the Time Machine was only to be recovered by boldly penetrating these underground mysteries. Yet I could not face the mystery. If only I had had a companion it would have been different. But I was so horribly alone, and even to clamber down into the darkness of the well appalled me. I don't know if you will understand my feeling, but I never felt quite safe at my back.

`It was this restlessness, this insecurity, perhaps, that drove me further and further afield in my exploring expeditions. Going to the south-westward towards the rising country that is

The Time Machine