Today's Stichomancy for Shigeru Miyamoto

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett:

Todd steered away from the rocks, and scolded at the sheep's mean owner, an acquaintance of hers, who grudged the little salt and still less care which the patient creatures needed. The hot midsummer sun makes prisons of these small islands that are a paradise in early June, with their cool springs and short thick- growing grass. On a larger island, farther out to sea, my entertaining companion showed me with glee the small houses of two farmers who shared the island between them, and declared that for three generations the people had not spoken to each other even in times of sickness or death or birth. "When the news come that the war was over, one of 'em knew it a week, and never stepped across

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce:

says the Indus is, with one exception, the only river that produces crocodiles, but they appear to have gone West and grown up with the other rivers. From the notches on his back the alligator is called a sawrian.

ALONE, adj. In bad company.

In contact, lo! the flint and steel, By spark and flame, the thought reveal That he the metal, she the stone, Had cherished secretly alone.

Booley Fito

ALTAR, n. The place whereupon the priest formerly raveled out the

The Devil's Dictionary

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Passionate Pilgrim by William Shakespeare:

In spite of physic, painting, pain and cost.

XIV. Good night, good rest. Ah, neither be my share: She bade good night that kept my rest away; And daff'd me to a cabin hang'd with care, To descant on the doubts of my decay. 'Farewell,' quoth she, 'and come again tomorrow: Fare well I could not, for I supp'd with sorrow.

Yet at my parting sweetly did she smile, In scorn or friendship, nill I construe whether: 'T may be, she joy'd to jest at my exile,

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 Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane:

projected piteously. And it was as if fate had betrayed the soldier. In death it exposed to his enemies that poverty which in life he had perhaps concealed from his friends.

The ranks opened covertly to avoid the corpse. The invulnerable dead man forced a way for him- self. The youth looked keenly at the ashen face. The wind raised the tawny beard. It moved as if a hand were stroking it. He vaguely desired to walk around and around the body and stare; the impulse of the living to try to read in dead

The Red Badge of Courage