Today's Stichomancy for Robert A. Heinlein

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Two Noble Kinsmen by William Shakespeare:

The mellencholly humour that infects her.

WOOER.

I am of your minde, Doctor.

[Enter Iaylor, Daughter, Maide.]

DOCTOR.

You'l finde it so; she comes, pray humour her.

IAILOR.

Come, your Love Palamon staies for you, childe, And has done this long houre, to visite you.

DAUGHTER.

I thanke him for his gentle patience;

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

OEDIPUS By treachery, or by sickness visited?

MESSENGER One touch will send an old man to his rest.

OEDIPUS So of some malady he died, poor man.

MESSENGER Yes, having measured the full span of years.

OEDIPUS Out on it, lady! why should one regard The Pythian hearth or birds that scream i' the air?

Oedipus Trilogy

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Monster Men by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

and noble, and self-sacrificing. More than that no girl needs to know. I am satisfied to be the wife of Bulan-- if Bulan is satisfied to have the daughter of the man who has so cruelly wronged him."

An arm went around the girl's shoulders and drew her close to the man she had glorified with her loyalty and her love. The other hand was stretched out toward Professor Maxon.

"Professor," said Bulan, "in the face of what Sing has told us, in the face of a disinterested comparison between myself and the miserable creatures of your

The Monster Men

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 Economist by Xenophon:

heavy in another?

Soc. I do not follow; by "light" do you mean weak? and by "heavy" strong?

Isch. Yes, that is what I mean. And the question which I put to you is this: Would you allow both sorts of soil an equal share of seed? or which the larger?[9]

[9] See Theophr. "Hist. Pl." viii. 6. 2; Virg. "Georg." ii. 275. Holden cf. Adam Dickson, "Husbandry of the Ancients," vol. ii. 35. 33 f. (Edin. 1788), "Were the poor light land in Britain managed after the manner of the Roman husbandry, it would certainly require much less seed than under its present management."