Today's Stichomancy for Joel Grey

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Verses 1889-1896 by Rudyard Kipling:

They'll let me free o' the barricks to walk on the Hoe again In the name o' William Parsons, that used to be Edward Clay, An' -- any pore beggar that wants it can draw my fourpence a day! Back to the Army again, sergeant, Back to the Army again: Out o' the cold an' the rain, sergeant, Out o' the cold an' the rain. 'Oo's there? A man that's too good to be lost you,

Verses 1889-1896

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton:

began to dress herself. She was in evident haste, for she merely flung a thin dressing-gown over her night-dress and wrapped her head in a scarf; then she opened her closet and cautiously took out the kettle of kerosene. Having slipped a bundle of wooden matches into her pocket she proceeded, with increasing precautions, to unlock her door, and a few moments later she was feeling her way down the dark staircase, led by a glimmer of gas from the lower hall. At length she reached the bottom of the stairs and began the more difficult descent into the utter darkness of the basement. Here, however, she could move more freely, as there was less danger of being overheard; and without

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Georgics by Virgil:

Now for the native gifts of various soils, What powers hath each, what hue, what natural bent For yielding increase. First your stubborn lands And churlish hill-sides, where are thorny fields Of meagre marl and gravel, these delight In long-lived olive-groves to Pallas dear. Take for a sign the plenteous growth hard by Of oleaster, and the fields strewn wide With woodland berries. But a soil that's rich, In moisture sweet exulting, and the plain That teems with grasses on its fruitful breast,

Georgics

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 Poems of Goethe, Bowring, Tr. by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:

From earthly conflicts trying

Thou driv'st me to this shore; Through thee I'm thither flying,--

Sleep on! what wouldst thou more?

Through thee I'm hither flying,

Thou wilt not list before In slumbers thou art lying:

Sleep on! what wouldst thou more?

1803.* ----- LONGING.