Today's Stichomancy for Sammy Davis Jr.

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Frances Waldeaux by Rebecca Davis:

my stateroom. Let's go down, Jem. The fog is too chilly."

Frances Waldeaux did not find the fog chilly. She had been thinking for thirty years of the day when she should start to Europe--ever since she could think at all.

This was the day. It was like no other, now that it had come. The fog, the crowd, the greasy smells of the pier, all familiar enough yesterday, took on a certain remoteness and mystery. It seemed to her that she was doing something which nobody had ever done before. She was going to discover the Old World.

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

Soc. In good sooth, there can be nothing for it save to cut out the noisome weed, even as drones are cleared out from the hive.

Isch. You agree there is some show of reason for letting in these gangs of hoers?

Soc. Most true. And now I am turning over in my mind,[18] Ischomachus, how grand a thing it is to introduce a simile or such like figure well and aptly. No sooner had you mentioned the word "drones" than I was filled with rage against those miserable weeds, far more than when you merely spoke of weeds and undergrowth.

[18] Or, "I was just this moment pondering the virtue of a happy illustration." Lit. "what a thing it is to introduce an 'image'

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf:

and when Hewet scarcely replied to these remarks either, he merely pursed his lips, chose a fig, and relapsed quite contentedly into his own thoughts, of which he always had a very large supply. When luncheon was over they separated, taking their cups of coffee to different parts of the hall.

From his chair beneath the palm-tree Hewet saw Rachel come out of the dining-room with the Flushings; he saw them look round for chairs, and choose three in a corner where they could go on talking in private. Mr. Flushing was now in the full tide of his discourse. He produced a sheet of paper upon which he made drawings as he went on with his talk. He saw Rachel lean over and look, pointing to this

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 First Men In The Moon by H. G. Wells:

air of the growing plants, the faint sighing of the wind, or those that we ourselves had made.

Boom. ... Boom. ... Boom.

It came from beneath our feet, a sound in the earth. We seemed to hear it with our feet as much as with our ears. Its dull resonance was muffled by distance, thick with the quality of intervening substance. No sound that I can imagine could have astonished us more, or have changed more completely the quality of things about us. For this sound, rich, slow, and deliberate, seemed to us as though it could be nothing but the striking of some gigantic buried clock.

Boom. ... Boom. ... Boom.

The First Men In The Moon