Today's Stichomancy for Orson Welles

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 Lamp That Went Out by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner:

could say, and she returned to her home in a cab furnished her by the kind commissioner.

About two hours later, a police attendant announced that a gentleman would like to see Dr. von Riedan on business concerning the murder in Hietzing. "Friedrich Bormann" was the name on the card.

"Ask him to step in here," said the commissioner. "And please ask Mr. Muller to join us."

The good-looking young clerk entered the office bashfully and Muller slipped in behind him, seating himself inconspicuously by the door. At a sign from the commissioner the visitor began. "I am an employee of Braun & Co. I have the desk next to Leopold Winkler,

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Bab:A Sub-Deb, Mary Roberts Rinehart by Mary Roberts Rinehart:

age, as a familey does, which grows up and works or gets married. And Leila is getting to be a Man-hater and acts very strange most of the time."

Here I almost wept, and probably would have, had he not said:

"Here! Stop that, Or I----" He stopped and then said: "How about the engagement, Bab? Is it a failure to?"

"We are still plited," I said. "Of course we do not agree about some things, but the time to fuss is now, I darsay, and not when to late, with perhaps a large familey and unable to seperate."

"What sort of things?"

"Well," I said, "he thinks that he ought to play around with other

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

Suddenly an inspiration came to Carthoris.

"Hurl your own bowmen against Tario's!" he cried to Jav. "Let us see a materialized battle between two mentalities."

The suggestion seemed to hearten the Lotharian, and in another moment the three stood behind solid ranks of huge bowmen who hurled taunts and menaces at the advancing company emerging from the walled city.

Jav was a new man the moment his battalions stood between him and Tario. One could almost have sworn the man believed these creatures of his strange hypnotic power to be real flesh and blood.

Thuvia, Maid of Mars

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 Figure in the Carpet by Henry James:

"I see - it's some idea ABOUT life, some sort of philosophy. Unless it be," I added with the eagerness of a thought perhaps still happier, "some kind of game you're up to with your style, something you're after in the language. Perhaps it's a preference for the letter P!" I ventured profanely to break out. "Papa, potatoes, prunes - that sort of thing?" He was suitably indulgent: he only said I hadn't got the right letter. But his amusement was over; I could see he was bored. There was nevertheless something else I had absolutely to learn. "Should you be able, pen in hand, to state it clearly yourself - to name it, phrase it, formulate it?"