Today's Stichomancy for H. P. Lovecraft

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield:

fascinating process to watch.

Small and slight, with scanty black hair and beard and yellow-toned complexion, he invariably wore black serge clothes, a rough linen shirt, black sandals, and the largest black-rimmed spectacles that I had ever seen.

The Herr Oberlehrer, who sat opposite me, smiled benignantly.

"It must be very interesting for you, gnadige Frau, to be able to watch.... of course this is a VERY FINE HOUSE. There was a lady from the Spanish Court here in the summer; she had a liver. We often spoke together."

I looked gratified and humble.

"Now, in England, in your 'boarding 'ouse', one does not find the First

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Shakespeare's Sonnets by William Shakespeare:

As thus; mine eye's due is thy outward part, And my heart's right, thy inward love of heart.

XLVII

Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took, And each doth good turns now unto the other: When that mine eye is famish'd for a look, Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother, With my love's picture then my eye doth feast, And to the painted banquet bids my heart; Another time mine eye is my heart's guest, And in his thoughts of love doth share a part:

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac:

usefulness of your ministry and of the public good. It is all- important, I think, to correct that impression.

Then followed the usual epistolary formulas.

It was half-past seven in the morning when the man consummated the sacrifice of his ideas; he burned everything, the toil of years. Fatigued by the pressure of thought, overcome by mental suffering, he fell asleep with his head on the back of his armchair. He was wakened by a curious sensation, and found his hands covered with his wife's tears and saw her kneeling before him. Celestine had read the resignation. She could measure the depth of his fall. They were now to be reduced to live on four thousand francs a year; and that day she

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 Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche:

standing-alone, and the capacity for self-responsibility, indeed, they will avow among themselves a DELIGHT in denial and dissection, and a certain considerate cruelty, which knows how to handle the knife surely and deftly, even when the heart bleeds They will be STERNER (and perhaps not always towards themselves only) than humane people may desire, they will not deal with the "truth" in order that it may "please" them, or "elevate" and "inspire" them--they will rather have little faith in "TRUTH" bringing with it such revels for the feelings. They will smile, those rigourous spirits, when any one says in their presence "That thought elevates me, why should it not be true?" or "That

Beyond Good and Evil