Today's Stichomancy for Yoko Ono

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Baby Mine by Margaret Mayo:

tone of firm but motherly decision. "Zoie is quite right," she said.

Jimmy rolled his large eyes up at his spouse with a "you too, Brutus," expression.

Aggie continued mercilessly, "It's the only way, Jimmy."

No sooner had Aggie arrived at her decision than Zoie upset her tranquillity by a triumphant expression of "I have it."

Jimmy and Aggie gazed at Zoie's radiant face in consternation. They were accustomed to see only reproach there. Her sudden enthusiasm increased Jimmy's uneasiness.

"YOU have it," he grunted without attempting to conceal his

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Rezanov by Gertrude Atherton:

from latitude 55 degrees north, and including the chain of islands extending from Kamchatka north- ward, and southward to Japan; the exclusive right to all enterprises, whether hunting, trading, or build- ing, and to new discoveries; with strict prohibition from profiting from any of these pursuits, not only to all parties who might engage in them on their own responsibility, but also to those who formerly had ships and establishments there, except those who have united with the new Company." All private traders who refused to join the Company were to

Rezanov

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Dynamiter by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson:

miserable nervousness, the result, he said, of a long course of dumb ague; and having taken leave with a hand that still sweated and trembled, he gingerly resumed his burthen and departed.

Somerset retired to bed but not to sleep. What, he asked himself, had been the contents of the black portmanteau? Stolen goods? the carcase of one murdered? or - and at the thought he sat upright in bed - an infernal machine? He took a solemn vow that he would set these doubts at rest; and with the next morning, installed himself beside the dining-room window, vigilant with eye; and ear, to await and profit by

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 Whirligigs by O. Henry:

This May, who is no goddess, but Circe, masquerading at the dance given in honour of the fair débutante, Sum- mer, puts the kibosh on us all.

Old Mr. Coulson groaned a little, and then sat up straight in his invalid's chair. He had the gout very bad in one foot, a house near Gramercy Park, half a million dollars and a daughter. And he had a house- keeper, Mrs. Widdup. The fact and the name deserve a sentence each. They have it.

When May poked Mr. Coulson he became elder brother to the turtle-dove. In the window near which he sat