Today's Stichomancy for John Carpenter

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James:

but she made her case slightly more intelligible by returning presently: "What the state of things has been is that we felt of course bound to do nothing in mamma's lifetime."

"But now you think you'll just dispense with mamma's consent?"

"Ah it mayn't come to that!" I wondered what it might come to, and she went on: "Poor dear, she may swallow the dose. In fact, you know," she added with a laugh, "she really MUST!" - a proposition of which, on behalf of every one concerned, I fully acknowledged the force.

CHAPTER VIII.

NOTHING more vexatious had ever happened to me than to become aware

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell:

"But why--"

"I can't make money from the enforced labor and misery of others."

"But you owned slaves!"

"They weren't miserable. And besides, I'd have freed them all when Father died if the war hadn't already freed them. But this is different, Scarlett. The system is open to too many abuses. Perhaps you don't know it but I do. I know very well that Johnnie Gallegher has killed at least one man at his camp. Maybe more--who cares about one convict, more or less? He said the man was killed trying to escape, but that's not what I've heard elsewhere. And I know he works men who are too sick to work. Call it superstition,

Gone With the Wind

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Call of the Wild by Jack London:

though he listened through long vigils, the mournful howl was never raised.

He began to sleep out at night, staying away from camp for days at a time; and once he crossed the divide at the head of the creek and went down into the land of timber and streams. There he wandered for a week, seeking vainly for fresh sign of the wild brother, killing his meat as he travelled and travelling with the long, easy lope that seems never to tire. He fished for salmon in a broad stream that emptied somewhere into the sea, and by this stream he killed a large black bear, blinded by the mosquitoes while likewise fishing, and raging through the forest helpless and

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 Georgics by Virgil:

Bursts fitful sweat, a sweat that waxes cold Upon the dying beast; the skin is dry, And rigidly repels the handler's touch. These earlier signs they give that presage doom. But, if the advancing plague 'gin fiercer grow, Then are their eyes all fire, deep-drawn their breath, At times groan-laboured: with long sobbing heave Their lowest flanks; from either nostril streams Black blood; a rough tongue clogs the obstructed jaws. 'Twas helpful through inverted horn to pour Draughts of the wine-god down; sole way it seemed

Georgics