Today's Stichomancy for T. E. Lawrence

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland by Olive Schreiner:

raise to yourself great palaces, so that princes and great men of earth crept up to you and laid their hands against yours, so that you might slip gold into them--what would it profit you?"

"Profit!" Peter Halket stared: "Why, it would profit everything. What makes Beit and Rhodes and Barnato so great? If you've got eight millions--"

"Peter Simon Halket, which of those souls you have seen on earth is to you greatest?" said the stranger, "Which soul is to you fairest?"

"Ah," said Peter, "but we weren't talking of souls at all; we were talking of money. Of course if it comes to souls, my mother's the best person I've ever seen. But what does it help her? She's got to stand washing clothes

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Complete Poems of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

When the Jews suffer, ye are Medes and Persians: I know that in the days of Alexander Ye claimed exemption from the annual tribute In the Sabbatic Year, because, ye said, Your fields had not been planted in that year.

AMBASSADOR (reading). "Our fathers, upon certain frequent plagues, And following an ancient superstition, Were long accustomed to observe that day Which by the Israelites is called the Sabbath, And in a temple on Mount Gerizim

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Glasses by Henry James:

pretty presentation of her feet, which especially now in the supported slope of her posture occupied with their imperceptibility so much of the foreground--I was reminded anew, I say, how our young lady dazzled by some art that the enumeration of her merits didn't explain and that the mention of her lapses didn't affect. Where she was amiss nothing counted, and where she was right everything did. I say she was wanting in mystery, but that after all was her secret. This happened to be my first chance of introducing her to my mother, who had not much left in life but the quiet look from under the hood of her chair at the things which, when she should have quitted those she loved, she could still trust

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 Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens:

last words which had passed his white lips were curses on them as his enemies.

Mr Haredale had determined to be there, and see it done. Nothing but the evidence of his own senses could satisfy that gloomy thirst for retribution which had been gathering upon him for so many years. The locksmith knew this, and when the chimes had ceased to vibrate, hurried away to meet him.

'For these two men,' he said, as he went, 'I can do no more. Heaven have mercy on them!--Alas! I say I can do no more for them, but whom can I help? Mary Rudge will have a home, and a firm friend when she most wants one; but Barnaby--poor Barnaby--willing

Barnaby Rudge