Today's Stichomancy for Stephen Colbert

you must leave Blois. Pardon my boldness in entering your chamber; but circumstances are stronger than etiquette, and I come to entreat you to hold a council."

Finding themselves thus surprised, Mary and Francois hastily separated, and on their faces was the same expression of offended royal majesty.

"You are too much of a grand-master, Monsieur de Guise," said the king, though controlling his anger.

"The devil take lovers," murmured the cardinal in Catherine's ear.

"My son," said the queen-mother, appearing behind the cardinal; "it is a matter concerning your safety and that of your kingdom."

Oriental's wonderful technique. His brush-strokes are very few in number, but each one tells. They are laid on with a touch which is little short of marvelous, and requires heredity to explain its skill. For in his method there is no emending, no super-position, no change possible. What he does is done once and for all. The force of it grows on you as you gaze. Each stroke expresses surprisingly much, and suggests more. Even omissions are made significant. In his painting it is visibly true that objects can be rendered conspicuous by their very absence. You are quite sure you see what on scrutiny you discover to be only the illusion of inevitable inference. The Far Oriental artist understands the power

your coldness and prudence. It has tiger passions I will not answer for. Give me your hand, and feel how it pants like a hungry fiend. It will have food, Margret."

She drew away the hand he grasped, and stood back in the shadow.

"What is it to me?"--in the same measured voice.

Holmes wiped the cold drops from his forehead, a sort of shudder in his powerful frame. He stood a moment looking into the fire, his head dropped on his arm.

"Let it be so," he said at last, quietly. "The worn old heart can gnaw on itself a little longer. I have no mind to whimper over pain."

Margret Howth: A Story of To-day

meal, as mentioned a few pages back, seems to have been held by the worshipers of Attis[1] in commemoration of their god; and the 'mysteries' of the Pagan cults generally appear to have included rites-- sometimes half-savage, sometimes more aesthetic--in which a dismembered animal was eaten, or bread and wine (the spirits of the Corn and the Vine) were consumed, as representing the body of the god whom his devotees desired to honor. But the best example of this practice is afforded by the rites of Dionysus, to which I will devote a few lines. Dionysus, like other Sun or Nature deities,

Pagan and Christian Creeds