Today's Stichomancy for Aretha Franklin

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac:

where you ought to be sent?--To the asylum at Charenton. You see men--"

"Elie Magus, Remonencq, and--"

"Oh! as for Remonencq, you may have seen /him/, for he came up to tell me that my poor Cibot is so bad that I must clear out of this and come down. My Cibot comes first, you see. When my husband is ill, I can think of nobody else. Try to keep quiet and sleep for a couple of hours; I have sent for Dr. Poulain, and I will come up with him. . . . Take a drink and be good--"

"Then was there no one in the room just now, when I waked? . . ."

"No one," said she. "You must have seen M. Remonencq in one of your

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed by Edna Ferber:

except for one figure bent over a pile of papers and proofs. Norberg, the city editor, was the last to leave, as always. His desk light glowed in the darkness of the big room, and his typewriter alone awoke the echoes.

As I stood in the doorway he peered up from beneath his green eye-shade, and waved a cloud of smoke away with the palm of his hand.

"That you, Mrs. Orme?" he called out. "Lord, we've missed you! That new woman can't write an obituary, and her teary tales sound like they were carved with a cold chisel. When are you coming back?"

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from When the World Shook by H. Rider Haggard:

paces away.

We obeyed and presently by the dim light saw the stone begin to stir again, this time upwards. In another twenty seconds it was away on its never-ending journey.

"Does it always go on like that?" said Bastin, sitting up and staring after it.

"Tens of thousands of years ago it was journeying thus, and tens of thousands of years hence it will still be journeying, or so I think," she replied. "Why not, since the strength of the draught never changes and there is nothing to wear it except the air?"

When the World Shook

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 McTeague by Frank Norris:

making of excavators, pluggers, and other dental contrivances stood him in fairly good stead. He lunched at a sailor's boarding-house near the water front, and in the afternoon worked till six. He was home at six-thirty, and he and Trina had supper together in the "ladies' dining parlor," an adjunct of the car conductors' coffee- joint. Trina, meanwhile, had worked at her whittling all day long, with but half an hour's interval for lunch, which she herself prepared upon the oil stove. In the evening they were both so tired that they were in no mood for conversation, and went to bed early, worn out, harried,

McTeague