Today's Stichomancy for William Gibson

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tom Grogan by F. Hopkinson Smith:

appearance had completely unnerved him.

"Jennie has told me about it," he said in a tender, sympathetic tone. "Who was mean enough to serve you in this way, Tom?" He called her Tom now, as the others did.

"Well, I won't say now. It may have been the horse, but I hardly think it, for I saw a face. All I remember clear is a-layin' me hand on the mare's back. When I come to I was flat on the lounge. They had fixed me up, and Dr. Mason had gone off. Only the thick hood saved me. Carl and Cully searched the place, but nothin' could be found. Cully says he heard somebody a-runnin' on the other side of the fence, but ye can't tell. Nobody keeps their

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Virginian by Owen Wister:

what I took from him in the saloon. Why don't you ask him to leave town?"

The good bishop was at a standstill. Of all kicking against the pricks none is so hard as this kick of a professing Christian against the whole instinct of human man.

"But you have helped me some," said the Virginian. "I will go and tell her. At least, if I think it will be good for her, I will tell her."

The bishop thought that he saw one last chance to move him.

"You're twenty-nine," he began.

"And a little over," said the Virginian.

The Virginian

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Salome by Oscar Wilde:

il du sang ici? . . . Et ce cadavre? Que fait ici ce cadavre? Pensez-vous que je sois comme le roi d'Egypte qui ne donne jamais un festin sans montrer un cadavre e ses hotes? Enfin, qui est-ce? Je ne veux pas le regarder.

PREMIER SOLDAT. C'est notre capitaine, Seigneur. C'est le jeune Syrien que vous avez fait capitaine il y a trois jours seulement.

HERODE. Je n'ai donne aucun ordre de le tuer.

SECOND SOLDAT. Il s'est tue lui-meme, Seigneur.

HERODE. Pourquoi? Je l'ai fait capitaine!

SECOND SOLDAT. Nous ne savons pas, Seigneur. Mais il s'est tue lui-meme.

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 Bucky O'Connor by William MacLeod Raine:

letter carefully guarded against crumpling by her hand.

Foolish presumption indeed. Why, he had only seen her once, and he said he would marry her with never a by-your-leave! Wasn't that what he had said? She had to strike another match to learn the lines that had not stuck word for word in her mind, and after that another match to get a picture of the scrawl to visualize in the dark.

How dared he take her for granted? But what a masterly way of wooing for the right man! What idiotic folly if he had been the wrong one! Was he, then, the right one? She questioned herself closely, but came to no more definite answer than this--that her