Today's Stichomancy for Ray Bradbury

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

say?"

"You are a ruffian to treat me so," wept La Cibot, now released,--"me that would go through fire and water for you both! Ah! well, well, they say that that is the way with men--and true it is! There is my poor Cibot, /he/ would not be rough with me like this. . . . And I treated you like my children, for I have none of my own; and yesterday, yes, only yesterday I said to Cibot, 'God knew well what He was doing, dear,' I said, 'when He refused us children, for I have two children there upstairs.' By the holy crucifix and the soul of my mother, that was what I said to him--"

"Eh! but vat did der doctor say?" Schmucke demanded furiously,

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Oedipus Trilogy by Sophocles:

HERDSMAN Well then--it was a child of Laius' house.

OEDIPUS Slave-born or one of Laius' own race?

HERDSMAN Ah me! I stand upon the perilous edge of speech.

OEDIPUS And I of hearing, but I still must hear.

HERDSMAN Know then the child was by repute his own,

Oedipus Trilogy

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from 'Twixt Land & Sea by Joseph Conrad:

Jasper know that they had been seen. But she was by no means certain that Heemskirk would tell her father - and at any rate not that evening. She concluded rapidly that the safest thing would be to get Jasper out of the way as soon as possible.

"What has he been doing?" asked Jasper in a calm undertone.

"Oh, nothing! Nothing. He sits there looking cross. But you know how he's always worrying papa."

"Your father's quite unreasonable," pronounced Jasper judicially.

"I don't know," she said in a doubtful tone. Something of old Nelson's dread of the authorities had rubbed off on the girl since she had to live with it day after day. "I don't know. Papa's

'Twixt Land & Sea

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 Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

Such are the prince's orders."

Then he turned and retraced his steps toward the palace, leaving her alone in the midst of the unseen terrors of the haunted city, for in truth these places are haunted in the belief of many Martians who still cling to an ancient superstition which teaches that the spirits of Holy Therns who die before their allotted one thousand years, pass, on occasions, into the bodies of the great white apes.

To Thuvia, however, the real danger of attack by one of these ferocious, manlike beasts was quite sufficient. She no longer believed in the weird soul transmigration

Thuvia, Maid of Mars