Today's Stichomancy for Bob Fosse

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lucile by Owen Meredith:

Dropp'd into the dark woods. By fits here and there Shepherd fires faintly gleam'd from the valleys. Oh, how He envied the wings of each wild bird, as now He urged the steed over the dizzy ascent Of the mountain! Behind him a murmur was sent From the torrent--before him a sound from the tracts Of the woodlands that waved o'er the wild cataracts, And the loose earth and loose stones roll'd momently down From the hoofs of his steed to abysses unknown. The red day had fallen beneath the black woods, And the Powers of the night through the vast solitudes

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Helen of Troy And Other Poems by Sara Teasdale:

A Minuet of Mozart's Twilight The Prayer Two Songs for a Child On the Tower

Helen of Troy and Other Poems

Helen of Troy

Wild flight on flight against the fading dawn The flames' red wings soar upward duskily. This is the funeral pyre and Troy is dead That sparkled so the day I saw it first,

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The First Men In The Moon by H. G. Wells:

off on that bicycle, and a third trustfully consulting that benevolent gentleman of means even as I read. I laughed, and let the paper drift from my hand.

"Are we visible from the earth?" I asked.

"Why?"

"I knew some one who was rather interested in astronomy. It occurred to me that it would be rather odd if - my friend - chanced to be looking through come telescope."

"It would need the most powerful telescope on earth even now to see us as the minutest speck."

For a time I stared in silence at the moon.

The First Men In The Moon

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 Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll:

for short distances!"

"One can easily imagine a situation," said Arthur, "where things would necessarily have no weight, relatively to each other, though each would have its usual weight, looked at by itself."

"Some desperate paradox!" said the Earl. "Tell us how it could be. We shall never guess it."

"Well, suppose this house, just as it is, placed a few billion miles above a planet, and with nothing else near enough to disturb it: of course it falls to the planet?"

The Earl nodded. "Of course though it might take some centuries to do it."

Sylvie and Bruno