Today's Stichomancy for James Brown

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Hero of Our Time by M.Y. Lermontov:

we laugh at; what is laughable, we grieve at; but, to tell the truth, we are fairly indifferent, generally speaking, to everything except our- selves. Consequently, there can be no inter- change of feelings and thoughts between us; each of us knows all he cares to know about the other, and that knowledge is all he wants. One expedient remains -- to tell the news. So tell me some news."

Fatigued by this lengthy speech, I closed my eyes and yawned. The doctor answered after

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dreams & Dust by Don Marquis:

they hunt for the lust of blood?

. . . . . .

If I were a god I would get me a spear, I would get me horse and dog, And merrily, merrily I would ride through covert and brake and bog,

With hound and horn and laughter loud, over the hills and away-- For there is no sport like that of a god with a man that stands at bay!

Ho! but the morning is fresh and fair, and oh!

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Crowd by Gustave le Bon:

sufficient in that case that a mere chance should bring them together for their acts to at once assume the characteristics peculiar to the acts of a crowd. At certain moments half a dozen men might constitute a psychological crowd, which may not happen in the case of hundreds of men gathered together by accident. On the other hand, an entire nation, though there may be no visible agglomeration, may become a crowd under the action of certain influences.

A psychological crowd once constituted, it acquires certain provisional but determinable general characteristics. To these general characteristics there are adjoined particular

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 The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne:

the secret told me, in the natural recoil of my heart at the first sight of him, and as often as I have seen him since? Why did I not understand? Oh, Hester Prynne, thou little, little knowest all the horror of this thing! And the shame! -- the indelicacy! -- the horrible ugliness of this exposure of a sick and guilty heart to the very eye that would gloat over it! Woman, woman, thou art accountable for this! -I cannot forgive thee!" "Thou shalt forgive me!" cried Hester, Singing herself on the fallen leaves beside him. "Let God punish! Thou shalt forgive!"

The Scarlet Letter