Today's Stichomancy for Monica Potter

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart:

Dinner over I went into the living-room. I had three hours before the children could possibly arrive, and I got out my knitting. I had brought along two dozen pairs of slipper soles in assorted sizes--I always send knitted slippers to the Old Ladies' Home at Christmas--and now I sorted over the wools with a grim determination not to think about the night before. But my mind was not on my work: at the end of a half-hour I found I had put a row of blue scallops on Eliza Klinefelter's lavender slippers, and I put them away.

I got out the cuff-link and went with it to the pantry. Thomas was wiping silver and the air was heavy with tobacco smoke. I

The Circular Staircase

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

pas profaner le temple du Seigneur Dieu.

SALOME. Tes cheveux sont horribles. Ils sont couverts de boue et de poussiere. On dirait une couronne d'epines qu'on a placee sur ton front. On dirait un noeud de serpents noirs qui se tortillent autour de ton cou. Je n'aime pas tes cheveux . . . C'est de ta bouche que je suis amoureuse, Iokanaan. Ta bouche est comme une bande d'ecarlate sur une tour d'ivoire. Elle est comme une pomme de grenade coupee par un couteau d'ivoire. Les fleurs de grenade qui fleurissent dans les jardins de Tyr et sont plus rouges que les roses, ne sont pas aussi rouges. Les cris rouges des trompettes qui annoncent l'arrivee des rois, et font peur e l'ennemi ne sont pas

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Disputation of the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences by Dr. Martin Luther:

``Disputatio pro Declaratione Virtutis Indulgentiarum.'' by Dr. Martin Luther, 1483-1546 D. MARTIN LUTHERS WERKE: KRITISCHE GESAMMTAUSGABE. 1. Band (Weimar: Hermann Boehlau, 1883). pp. 233-238. PW #001-001La

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This text was converted to ascii format for Project Wittenberg by Rev. Robert E. Smith and is in the public domain. You may freely distribute, copy or print this text. Please direct any comments or suggestions to: Rev. Robert E. Smith of the Walther Library at Concordia Theological Seminary.

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 A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne:

What a great scale is every thing upon in this city thought I. - The utmost stretch of an English periwig-maker's ideas could have gone no further than to have "dipped it into a pail of water." - What difference! 'tis like Time to Eternity!

I confess I do hate all cold conceptions, as I do the puny ideas which engender them; and am generally so struck with the great works of nature, that for my own part, if I could help it, I never would make a comparison less than a mountain at least. All that can be said against the French sublime, in this instance of it, is this: - That the grandeur is MORE in the WORD, and LESS in the THING. No doubt, the ocean fills the mind with vast ideas; but