Today's Stichomancy for Lewis Carroll

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Talisman by Walter Scott:

penalty might be paid to justice, both King and Queen accorded in laying the whole blame on the agent Nectabanus, who (the Queen being by this time well weary of the poor dwarf's humour) was, with his royal consort Guenevra, sentenced to be banished from the Court; and the unlucky dwarf only escaped a supplementary whipping, from the Queen's assurances that he had already sustained personal chastisement. It was decreed further that, as an envoy was shortly to be dispatched to Saladin, acquainting him with the resolution of the Council to resume hostilities so soon as the truce was ended, and as Richard proposed to send a valuable present to the Soldan, in acknowledgment of the high

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Polly of the Circus by Margaret Mayo:

"I didn't have enough money for that," Douglas answered, frankly. He turned to the small boy and pinched his ear. There was sad disappointment in the youngster's face, but he brightened again, when the parson confessed that he "peeped."

"A parson peeping!" cried the thin-lipped Miss Perkins.

"I was not a parson then," corrected Douglas, good-naturedly.

"You were GOING to be," persisted the spinster.

"I had to be a boy first, in spite of that fact."

The sudden appearance of Hasty proved a diversion. He was looking very sheepish.

"Hyar he is, Mars John; look at him!" said Mandy.

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:

how her noble suitor HAD served her got the better of that emotion, and I asked a question or two which led my companion again to apply to him the invidious term I have already quoted. What had happened was simply that Flora had at the eleventh hour broken down in the attempt to put him off with an uncandid account of her infirmity and that his lordship's interest in her had not been proof against the discovery of the way she had practised on him. Her dissimulation, he was obliged to perceive, had been infernally deep. The future in short assumed a new complexion for him when looked at through the grim glasses of a bride who, as he had said to some one, couldn't really, when you came to find out, see her

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 Case of The Lamp That Went Out by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner:

"And let us blunder on in our official stupidity and blindness?" interrupted the commissioner, a faint smile breaking the gravity of his face. "We certainly gave you every opportunity."

"But there's an innocent man accused - suffering fear of death - justice must be done. But, sir," Muller took the warrant the commissioner handed across the table to him. "May I not make it as easy as I can for Mr. Thorne - I mean, bring him here with as little publicity as possible? His wife is with him in Venice."

"Poor little woman, it's terrible! Do whatever you think best, Muller. You're a queer mixture. Here you've hounded this man down, followed hot on his trail when not a soul but yourself connected