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 Egmont by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe:

sought it--and, for the most part, those only obtain love who seek it not.

Clara. Is it from thine own experience that thou hast learned this? Didst thou make that proud remark in reference to thyself? Thou, whom all the people love?

Egmont. Would that I had done something for them! That I could do anything for them! It is their own good pleasure to love me.

Clara. Thou hast doubtless been with the Regent to-day?

Egmont. I have.

Clara. Art thou upon good terms with her?

Egmont So it would appear. We are kind and serviceable to each other.

Clara. And in thy heart?

Egmont

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw:

cruder acquisitive appetites the child will steal and lie and be a nuisance to you; and that if you encourage its appetite for perfection and teach it to attach a peculiar sacredness to it and place it before the other appetites, it will be a much nicer child and you will have a much easier job, at which point you will, in spite of your pseudoscientific jargon, find yourself back in the old-fashioned religious teaching as deep as Dr. Watts and in fact fathoms deeper.

Moral Instruction Leagues

And now the voices of our Moral Instruction Leagues will be lifted, asking whether there is any reason why the appetite for perfection should not be cultivated in rationally scientific terms instead of

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Aspern Papers by Henry James:

near the door of the sala), I thought I saw her smile ingenuously. "I came on purpose--I heard your step."

"Why, I came on tiptoe, as inaudibly as possible."

"Well, I heard you," said Miss Tita.

"And is your aunt alone now?"

"Oh, no; Olimpia is sitting there."

On my side I hesitated. "Shall we then step in there?" And I nodded at the parlor; I wanted more and more to be on the spot.

"We can't talk there--she will hear us."

I was on the point of replying that in that case we would

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 Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac:

over their champagne and their pheasants,--are handed down at their birth from the brain to the commercial travellers who are employed to spread them discreetly, "urbi et orbi," through Paris and the provinces, seasoned with the fried pork of advertisement and prospectus, by means of which they catch in their rat-trap the departmental rodent commonly called subscriber, sometimes stockholder, occasionally corresponding member or patron, but invariably fool.

"I am a fool!" many a poor country proprietor has said when, caught by the prospect of being the first to launch a new idea, he finds that he has, in point of fact, launched his thousand or twelve hundred francs into a gulf.