Today's Stichomancy for David Geffen

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner:

"Above there was a precipice of rocks, and a tiny stream of water oozed from them and fell slowly on to the flat stone below. Each drop you could hear fall like a little silver bell. There was one among the trees on the bank that stood cut out against the white sky. All the other trees were silent; but this one shook and trembled against the sky. Everything else was still; but those leaves were quivering, quivering. I stood on the sand; I could not go away. When it was quite dark, and the stars had come, I crept out. Does it seem strange to you that it should have made me so happy? It is because I cannot tell you how near I felt to things that we cannot see but we always feel. Tonight has been a wild, stormy night. I have been walking across the plain for hours in the dark. I have liked the

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith:

first appearance.

HARDCASTLE. Ay, when a girl finds a fellow's outside to her taste, she then sets about guessing the rest of his furniture. With her, a smooth face stands for good sense, and a genteel figure for every virtue.

MISS HARDCASTLE. I hope, sir, a conversation begun with a compliment to my good sense, won't end with a sneer at my understanding?

HARDCASTLE. Pardon me, Kate. But if young Mr. Brazen can find the art of reconciling contradictions, he may please us both, perhaps.

MISS HARDCASTLE. And as one of us must be mistaken, what if we go to make further discoveries?

HARDCASTLE. Agreed. But depend on't I'm in the right.

She Stoops to Conquer

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon:

evildoing by reason of the multitude of the people.

[12] Reading with Kirchhoff. Cf. for {oiesthai khre}, "Hell." VI. iv. 23; "Cyr." IV. ii. 28.

So far so good.[13] "But," some one will say, "try the cases you certainly must, but lessen the number of the judges." But if so, it follows of necessity that unless the number of courts themselves are diminished in number there will only be a few judges sitting in each court,[14] with the further consequence that in dealing with so small a body of judges it will be easier for a litigant to present an invulnerable front[15] to the court, and to bribe[16] the whole body, to the great detriment of justice.[17]

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 King Henry VI by William Shakespeare:

His arms are only to remove from thee The Duke of Somerset, whom he terms a traitor.

KING. Thus stands my state, 'twixt Cade and York distress'd, Like to a ship that, having scap'd a tempest, Is straightway calm'd and boarded with a pirate; But now is Cade driven back, his men dispers'd, And now is York in arms to second him.-- I pray thee, Buckingham, go and meet him, And ask him wha t's the reason of these arms. Tell him I'll send Duke Edmund to the Tower;--