Today's Stichomancy for David Geffen

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela:

"One good thing about it is that I've collected all my back pay," Quail said, exhibiting some gold watches and rings stolen from the priest's house.

"It's fun fighting this way," Manteca cried, spicing every other word with an oath. "You know why the hell you're risking your hide."

In the same hand with which he held the reins, he clutched a shining ornament that he had torn from one of the holy statues.

After Quail, an expert in such matters, had examined Manteca's treasure covetously, he uttered a solemn

The Underdogs

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

GWENDOLEN. Yes.

CECILY. Oh, but it is not Mr. Ernest Worthing who is my guardian. It is his brother - his elder brother.

GWENDOLEN. [Sitting down again.] Ernest never mentioned to me that he had a brother.

CECILY. I am sorry to say they have not been on good terms for a long time.

GWENDOLEN. Ah! that accounts for it. And now that I think of it I have never heard any man mention his brother. The subject seems distasteful to most men. Cecily, you have lifted a load from my mind. I was growing almost anxious. It would have been terrible

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Case of The Lamp That Went Out by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner:

ten, for it was during this hour only that Knoll was in the garden house and heard the shot. But it was not necessary to depend upon the tramp's evidence alone to determine the exact hour of the shot. It must have been before half past nine, or otherwise the janitor of No.1, who came home at that hour and lay awake so long, would undoubtedly have heard a shot fired so near his domicile, in spite of the noise occasioned by the high wind. There would have been sufficient time for Mrs. Bernauer to have reached the place of the murder between the putting out of the lamp and the firing of the shot. But perhaps she may have rested quietly in her room; she may have been only the inciter or the accomplice of the deed. But

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 Troll Garden and Selected Stories by Willa Cather:

almost decided I can get more fun for my money somewhere else."

Clara took in her breath sharply. "Ah, you have got the other will! That was why you came home!"

"No, it wasn't. I came home to see how you were getting on with Olaf."

Clara struck her horse with the whip, and in a bound she was far ahead of him. Nils dropped one word, "Damn!" and whipped after her; but she leaned forward in her saddle and fairly cut the wind. Her long riding skirt rippled in the still air behind her. The sun was just sinking behind the stubble in a vast, clear sky, and the shadows drew across the fields so rapidly that Nils could scarcely

The Troll Garden and Selected Stories