Today's Stichomancy for Ray Bradbury

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson:

kitchen, had thus ended the dispute: "The cutty looks weel," he had said, "and it's no very like rain. Wear them the day, hizzie; but it's no a thing to make a practice o'." In the breasts of her rivals, coming to the kirk very conscious of white under-linen, and their faces splendid with much soap, the sight of the toilet had raised a storm of varying emotion, from the mere unenvious admiration that was expressed in a long-drawn "Eh!" to the angrier feeling that found vent in an emphatic "Set her up!" Her frock was of straw-coloured jaconet muslin, cut low at the bosom and short at the ankle, so as to display her DEMI- BROQUINS of Regency violet, crossing with many straps upon a yellow cobweb stocking. According to the pretty fashion in which our

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

Then we'll only have the officers to deal with! If you want to give me a gun or something. . . ."

"No more rifles left, brother. But I guess you can put these to some use," Anastasio Montanez said, passing him two hand grenades.

The officer in command of the Federals was a young coxcomb of a captain with a waxed mustache and blond hair. As long as he felt uncertain about the strength of the assailants, he had remained extremely quiet and prudent; but now that they had driven the rebels back without al- lowing them a chance to fire a single shot, he waxed bold

The Underdogs

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

To withhold the vengeance that they had in store Due to this heinous capital offence, Even in the height and pride of all his glory, When he was seated in a chariot Of an inestimable value, and his daughter with him, A fire from heavn came and shrivell'd up Their bodies, even to loathing; for they so stunk, That all those eyes adored them ere their fall Scorn now their hand should give them burial.

ESCANES. 'Twas very strange

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 Village Rector by Honore de Balzac:

the life he would have to lead in his new mansion would, he estimated, cost him nearly as much as the original building. In spite, therefore, of the gossip of tongues and the charitable suppositions of his neighbors, he continued to live on in the damp, old, and dirty ground- floor apartment in the rue Montantmanigne where his fortune had been made. The public carped, but Graslin had the approval of his former partners, who praised a resolution that was somewhat uncommon.

A fortune and a position like those of Pierre Graslin naturally excited the greed of not a few in a small provincial city. During the last ten years more than one proposition of marriage had been intimated to Monsieur Graslin. But the bachelor state was so well