Today's Stichomancy for Aretha Franklin

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare:

And steale immortall blessing from her lips, Who euen in pure and vestall modestie Still blush, as thinking their owne kisses sin. This may Flies doe, when I from this must flie, And saist thou yet, that exile is not death? But Romeo may not, hee is banished. Had'st thou no poyson mixt, no sharpe ground knife, No sudden meane of death, though nere so meane, But banished to kill me? Banished? O Frier, the damned vse that word in hell: Howlings attends it, how hast then the hart

Romeo and Juliet

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Tono Bungay by H. G. Wells:

the patent flat face down. Then he waved his glasses at us, "You know, Susan, my elder brother George. I told you about 'im lots of times."

He fretted across to the hearthrug and took up a position there, replaced his glasses and coughed.

My aunt Susan seemed to be taking it in. She was then rather a pretty slender woman of twenty-three or four, I suppose, and I remember being struck by the blueness of her eyes and the clear freshness of her complexion. She had little features, a button nose, a pretty chin and a long graceful neck that stuck out of her pale blue cotton morning dress. There was a look of

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson:

Man-devouring tigers are, Lying close and giving ear Lest the hunt be drawing near, Or a comer-by be seen Swinging in the palanquin;-- Where among the desert sands Some deserted city stands, All its children, sweep and prince, Grown to manhood ages since, Not a foot in street or house, Not a stir of child or mouse,

A Child's Garden of Verses

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 Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells:

the Whip. Great is the Law! Come and see."

"None escape," said one of them, advancing and peering.

"None escape," said I. "Therefore hear and do as I command." They stood up, looking questioningly at one another.

"Stand there," said I.

I picked up the hatchets and swung them by their heads from the sling of my arm; turned Montgomery over; picked up his revolver still loaded in two chambers, and bending down to rummage, found half-a-dozen cartridges in his pocket.

"Take him," said I, standing up again and pointing with the whip; "take him, and carry him out and cast him into the sea."

The Island of Doctor Moreau