Today's Stichomancy for Ken Nordine

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac:

of diamonds. The paper said that in case he should not return, he left us this money and these diamonds in trust to found masses to thank God for his escape and for his salvation.

" 'At that time I still had my husband, who ran off in search of him. And this is the queer part of the story: he brought back the Spaniard's clothes, which he had found under a big stone on a sort of breakwater along the river bank, nearly opposite la Grande Breteche. My husband went so early that no one saw him. After reading the letter, he burnt the clothes, and, in obedience to Count Feredia's wish, we announced that he had escaped.

" 'The sub-prefect set all the constabulary at his heels; but, pshaw!

La Grande Breteche

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart:

indescribable odor of drugs that meant illness. He remembered that the boy was frail.

Marie turned as he stopped in the salon doorway, and then rose, white-faced. Across the wide spaces of the room they eyed each other. Marie's crisis had come. Like all crises it was bigger than speech. It was after a distinct pause that she spoke.

"Hast thou brought the police?"

Curiously human, curiously masculine at least was Stewart's mental condition at that moment. He had never loved the girl; it was with tremendous relief he had put her out of his life. And yet--

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw:

improvement on the one hand, and on the other that blessed selective faculty which enables us to ignore a good deal of disagreeable noise if there is a thread of music in the middle of it (few critics of the phonograph seem to be conscious of the very considerable mechanical noise set up by choirs and orchestras) we have at last reached a point at which, for example, a person living in an English village where the church music is the only music, and that music is made by a few well-intentioned ladies with the help of a harmonium, can hear masses by Palestrina very passably executed, and can thereby be led to the discovery that Jackson in F and Hymns Ancient and Modern are not perhaps the last word of beauty and propriety in the praise of God.

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 Rewards and Fairies by Rudyard Kipling:

He was taken prisoner, he was cast in thrall, And Iron - Cold Iron - was master of it all!

Yet his King spake kindly (Oh, how kind a Lord!) 'What if I release thee now and give thee back thy sword?' 'Nay!' said the Baron, 'mock not at my fall, For Iron - Cold Iron - is master of men all.'

'Tears are for the craven, prayers are for the clown - Halters for the silly neck that cannot keep a crown.' 'As my loss is grievous, so my hope is small, For Iron - Cold Iron - must be master of men all!'

Yet his King made answer (few such Kings there be!)