Today's Stichomancy for Wassily Kandinsky

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare:

Then both, or one, or anything thou wilt.

GRUMIO. Why then the mustard without the beef.

KATHERINA. Go, get thee gone, thou false deluding slave,

[Beats him.]

That feed'st me with the very name of meat. Sorrow on thee and all the pack of you That triumph thus upon my misery! Go, get thee gone, I say.

[Enter PETRUCHIO with a dish of meat; and HORTENSIO.]

The Taming of the Shrew

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac:

always on my guard with a woman. There is this creature, for instance; I am madly in love with her; but this is not her furniture; no, it belongs to me. The lease is taken out in my name.'

"You know Maxime! He thought the coach-builder uncommonly green. Croizeau might pay all three bills, and get nothing for a long while; for Maxime felt more infatuated with Antonia than ever."

"I can well believe it," said La Palferine. "She is the /bella Imperia/ of our day."

"With her rough skin!" exclaimed Malaga; "so rough, that she ruins herself in bran baths!"

"Croizeau spoke with a coach-builder's admiration of the sumptuous

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

simply won't believe it until I see it with my own eyes. If she's with them she's being held by force."

Burton made no reply. He was not a man to jump to conclusions. His success was largely due to the fact that he assumed nothing; but merely ran down each clew quickly yet painstakingly until he had a foundation of fact upon which to operate. His theory was that the simplest way is always the best way and so he never be- fogged the main issue with any elaborate system of de- ductive reasoning based on guesswork. Burton never guessed. He assumed that it was his business to KNOW,

The Oakdale Affair

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 Lysis by Plato:

petimusque damusque vicissim. The sweet draught of sympathy is not inexhaustible; and it tends to weaken the person who too freely partakes of it. Thus we see that there are many causes which impair the happiness of friends.

We may expect a friendship almost divine, such as philosophers have sometimes dreamed of: we find what is human. The good of it is necessarily limited; it does not take the place of marriage; it affords rather a solace than an arm of support. It had better not be based on pecuniary obligations; these more often mar than make a friendship. It is most likely to be permanent when the two friends are equal and independent, or when they are engaged together in some common work or have some public

Lysis