Today's Stichomancy for Ice Cube

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Russia in 1919 by Arthur Ransome:

my stay were spent, not in visiting Commissariats, but in collecting masses of printed material, in talking with my friends of the opposition parties, and, while it was in progress, visiting daily the Conference in the Kremlin which, in the end, definitely announced itself as the Third International. I have considered it best to treat of that Conference more or less as a whole, and am therefore compelled to disregard chronology altogether in putting down on paper, the results of some of my talks with the opposition. Some of these took place on the same days as my visits to the Kremlin conference, and during those days

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Chronicles of the Canongate by Walter Scott:

sought your fostering patronage, and the objects which it contemplates, have been fully explained to you. But, gentlemen, the relief which it proposes is not a gratuitous relief, but to be purchased by the individual contribution of its members towards the general good. This Fund lends no encouragement to idleness or improvidence, but it offers an opportunity to prudence in vigour and youth to make provision against the evening of life and its attendant infirmity. A period is fixed at which we admit the plea of age as an exemption from professional labour. It is painful to behold the veteran on the stage (compelled by necessity) contending against physical decay,

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland by Olive Schreiner:

as, when a little child, his mother folded him to her: he saw nothing more about him but a soft bright light. Yet in it he heard a voice cry, "Because thou hast loved mercy--and hated oppression--"

When Trooper Peter Halket raised himself, he saw the figure of the stranger passing from him. He cried, "My Master, let me go with you." But the figure did not turn. And, as it passed into the darkness, it seemed to Peter Halket that the form grew larger and larger: and as it descended the further side of the kopje it seemed that for one instant he still saw the head with a pale, white light upon it: then it vanished.

And Trooper Peter Halket sat alone upon the kopje.

Chapter II.

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 Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde:

letter open and reads it, then sinks down into a chair with a gesture of anguish.] Oh, how terrible! The same words that twenty years ago I wrote to her father! and how bitterly I have been punished for it! No; my punishment, my real punishment is to- night, is now! [Still seated R.]

[Enter LORD WINDERMERE L.U.E.]

LORD WINDERMERE. Have you said good-night to my wife? [Comes C.]

MRS. ERLYNNE. [Crushing letter in her hand.] Yes.

LORD WINDERMERE. Where is she?

MRS. ERLYNNE. She is very tired. She has gone to bed. She said she had a headache.