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 Egmont by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe:

Mother. That is not as it should be.

Clara. I liked him once, and in my soul I like him still I could have married him; yet I believe I was never really in love with him.

Mother. Thou wouldst always have been happy with him.

Clara. I should have been provided for, and have led a quiet life.

Mother. And through thy fault it has all been trifled away.

Clara, I am in a strange position. When I think how it has come to pass, I know it, indeed, and I know it not. But I have only to look upon Egmont, and I understand it all; ay, and stranger things would seem natural then. Oh, what a man he is! All the provinces worship him. And in his arms, should I not be the happiest creature in the world?

Egmont

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen:

speak with Miss Tilney that moment, and hurrying by him proceeded upstairs. Then, opening the first door before her, which happened to be the right, she immediately found herself in the drawing-room with General Tilney, his son, and daughter. Her explanation, defective only in being--from her irritation of nerves and shortness of breath--no explanation at all, was instantly given. "I am come in a great hurry--It was all a mistake--I never promised to go--I told them from the first I could not go.--I ran away in a great hurry to explain it.--I did not care what you thought of me.--I would not stay

Northanger Abbey

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac:

the eyelids were fringed with lashes of extraordinary length. The hair, of a bluish black, long and fine and abundant, crowned a brow moulded like that of the Farnese Juno. That magnificent diadem of hair, those grand Armenian eyes, that celestial brow eclipsed the rest of the face. The nose, though pure in form as it left the brow, and graceful in curve, ended in flattened and flaring nostrils. Anger increased this effect at times, and then the face wore an absolutely furious expression. All the lower part of the face, like the lower part of the nose, seemed unfinished, as if the clay in the hands of the divine sculptor had proved insufficient. Between the lower lip and the chin the space was so short that any one taking La Pechina by the

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 Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake:

Bound and weary, I thought best To sulk upon my mother's breast.

A POISON TREE

I was angry with my friend: I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears Night and morning with my tears, And I sunned it with smiles And with soft deceitful wiles.

Songs of Innocence and Experience