Today's Stichomancy for Joel Grey

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Rig Veda:

Let those whose hands have seized upon them free them. May he, observant, drive the herd to us-ward.

6 Mid mortal men godless have secreted the King of all who live, home of the people. So may the prayers of Atri give him freedom. Reproached in turn be those who now reproach him.

7 Thou from the stake didst loose e'en Sunahsepa bound for a thousand;

The Rig Veda

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum:

not see. Then I kept on till I fell in the snow, without knowing where I was, and the wind blew the flakes over me and covered me up."

Claus gently stroked his head, and the boy looked up at him and smiled.

"I'm all right now," said Weekum.

"Yes," replied Claus, happily. "Now I will put you in my warm bed, and you must sleep until morning, when I will carry you back to your mother."

"May the cat sleep with me?" asked the boy.

"Yes, if you wish it to," answered Claus.

"It's a nice cat!" Weekum said, smiling, as Claus tucked the blankets around him; and presently the little one fell asleep with the wooden toy in his arms.

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Mrs. Warren's Profession by George Bernard Shaw:

PRAED. My dear Kitty: you think I'm offended. Dont imagine that: pray dont. But you know I often notice things that escape you; and though you never take my advice, you sometimes admit afterwards that you ought to have taken it.

MRS WARREN. Well, what do you notice now?

PRAED. Only that Vivie is a grown woman. Pray, Kitty, treat her with every respect.

MRS WARREN [with genuine amazement] Respect! Treat my own daughter with respect! What next, pray!

VIVIE [appearing at the cottage door and calling to Mrs Warren] Mother: will you come to my room before tea?

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 Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson:

impatience - something of a larger gait; something daylit, not twilit; something with the colours of life, not the flat tints of a temple illumination; something that shall be SAID with all the clearnesses and the trivialities of speech, not SUNG like a semi- articulate lullaby. It will not please yourself as well, when you come to give it us, but it will please others better. It will be more of a whole, more worldly, more nourished, more commonplace - and not so pretty, perhaps not even so beautiful. No man knows better than I that, as we go on in life, we must part from prettiness and the graces. We but attain qualities to lose them; life is a series of farewells, even in art; even our proficiencies