Today's Stichomancy for Ludwig Wittgenstein

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Tono Bungay by H. G. Wells:

mortgages and debentures.

Behind his first-line things he found it necessary at last, and sanctioned by all the precincts, to set up three general trading companies, the London and African Investment Company, the British Traders' Loan Company, and Business Organisations Limited. This was in the culminating time when I had least to do with affairs. I don't say that with any desire to exculpate myself; I admit I was a director of all three, and I will confess I was willfully incurious in that capacity. Each of these companies ended its financial year solvent by selling great holdings of shares to one or other of its sisters, and paying a dividend out of the

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

Had the best boding chance. [Another cry, and showt within, and Cornets.] This burst of clamour Is sure th'end o'th Combat.

[Enter Servant.]

SERVANT.

They saide that Palamon had Arcites body Within an inch o'th Pyramid, that the cry Was generall 'a Palamon': But, anon, Th'Assistants made a brave redemption, and The two bold Tytlers, at this instant are Hand to hand at it.

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Love Songs by Sara Teasdale:

Bright dew was on the grass, And on the ilex, dew, The dreamy milk-white birds Were all a-glisten, too.

The fountain sang and sang The things one cannot tell; The dreaming peacocks stirred And the gleaming dew-drops fell.

I Shall Not Care

When I am dead and over me bright April Shakes out her rain-drenched hair,

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 Tom Sawyer, Detective by Mark Twain:

a bite.

By and by when it was stillest, that nigger's head was poked in at the door again, and he said his Marse Brace was getting powerful uneasy about Marse Jubiter, which hadn't come home yet, and would Marse Silas please --He was looking at Uncle Silas, and he stopped there, like the rest of his words was froze; for Uncle Silas he rose up shaky and steadied himself leaning his fingers on the table, and he was panting, and his eyes was set on the nigger, and he kept swallowing, and put his other hand up to his throat a couple of times, and at last he