Today's Stichomancy for Ludwig Wittgenstein

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Case of the Golden Bullet by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner:

he handed to the commissioner. The detective had found something else in the little table drawer - a tortoise-shell hairpin, which he had carefully hidden in his own pocket before rejoining the others.

Horn turned to the servant again. "How many times have you been out of the apartment since last night?"

"Once only, sir, to go to the police station to fetch you."

"And you locked the door behind you?"

"Why, yes, sir. You saw that I had to turn the key twice to let you in."

Horn and Muller both looked the young man over very carefully. He

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Duchess of Padua by Oscar Wilde:

I will by sudden secret messenger Send thee a sign.

GUIDO

How shall I kill him, tell me?

MORANZONE

That night thou shalt creep into his private chamber; But if he sleep see that thou wake him first, And hold thy hand upon his throat, ay! that way, Then having told him of what blood thou art, Sprung from what father, and for what revenge, Bid him to pray for mercy; when he prays,

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett:

street.

When I went in again the little house had suddenly grown lonely, and my room looked empty as it had the day I came. I and all my belongings had died out of it, and I knew how it would seem when Mrs. Todd came back and found her lodger gone. So we die before our own eyes; so we see some chapters of our lives come to their natural end.

I found the little packages on the kitchen table. There was a quaint West Indian basket which I knew its owner had valued, and which I had once admired; there was an affecting provision laid beside it for my seafaring supper, with a neatly tied bunch of

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 Symposium by Xenophon:

another was a thing to contemplate.[5] As to the spectators, they could see that Dionysus was indeed most beautiful, and Ariadne like some lovely blossom; nor were those mocking gestures, but real kisses sealed on loving lips; and so,[6] with hearts aflame, they gazed expectantly. They could hear the question asked by Dionysus, did she love him? and her answer, as prettily she swore she did. And withal so earnestly, not Dionysus only, but all present, had sworn an oath in common: the boy and girl were verily and indeed a pair of happy lovers. So much less did they resemble actors, trained to certain gestures, than two beings bent on doing what for many a long day they had set their hearts on.

The Symposium