Today's Stichomancy for Jim Henson

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Heroes by Charles Kingsley:

Triballi, till he came to the Ister stream, and the dreary Scythian plains. And he walked across the Ister dry-shod, and away through the moors and fens, day and night toward the bleak north-west, turning neither to the right hand nor the left, till he came to the Unshapen Land, and the place which has no name.

And seven days he walked through it, on a path which few can tell; for those who have trodden it like least to speak of it, and those who go there again in dreams are glad enough when they awake; till he came to the edge of the everlasting night, where the air was full of feathers, and the soil was

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

Man is but a dream. He comes and goes. The woman's soul leadeth us upward and on!"

He was always going on like that.

What in particular he wanted from the Government for his secret did not appear, nor what beyond a money payment could be expected from a modem state in such an affair. The general effect upon judicious observers, indeed, was not that he was treating for anything, but that he was using an unexampled opportunity to bellow and show off to an attentive world. Rumours of his real identity spread abroad. It was said that he had been the landlord of an ambiguous hotel in Cape Town, and had there given

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Damaged Goods by Upton Sinclair:

the works of art which surrounded him, but feeling like a prisoner who sits in the dock with his life at stake while the jury deliberates.

The doctor returned, calm and impassive, and seated himself in his office-chair.

"Well, doctor?" asked George. He was trembling with terror.

"Well," was the reply, "there is no doubt whatever."

George wiped his forehead. He could not credit the words. "No doubt whatever? In what sense?"

"In the bad sense," said the other.

He began to write a prescription, without seeming to notice how

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 Othello by William Shakespeare:

Clo. No, I heare not your honest Friend: I heare you

Cassio. Prythee keepe vp thy Quillets, ther's a poore peece of Gold for thee: if the Gentlewoman that attends the Generall be stirring, tell her, there's one Cassio entreats her a little fauour of Speech. Wilt thou do this? Clo. She is stirring sir: if she will stirre hither, I shall seeme to notifie vnto her.

Exit Clo.

Enter Iago.

In happy time, Iago

Othello