Today's Stichomancy for Orson Welles

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum:

neck by a golden chain; his hands were thrust carelessly into his pockets, and he seemed to have no idea at all that the City was threatened by rebels. Speaking pleasantly to the girls, he said:

"Good morning, my dears! What can I do for you?"

Line-Art Drawing

"Surrender instantly!" answered General Jinjur, standing before him and frowning as terribly as her pretty face would allow her to.

"Surrender!" echoed the man, astounded. "Why, it's impossible. It's against the law! I never heard of such a thing in my life."

"Still, you must surrender!" exclaimed the General, fiercely. "We are

The Marvelous Land of Oz

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Lover's Complaint by William Shakespeare:

And often kiss'd, and often 'gan to tear; Cried, 'O false blood, thou register of lies, What unapproved witness dost thou bear! Ink would have seem'd more black and damned here!' This said, in top of rage the lines she rents, Big discontent so breaking their contents.

A reverend man that grazed his cattle nigh, Sometime a blusterer, that the ruffle knew Of court, of city, and had let go by The swiftest hours, observed as they flew, Towards this afflicted fancy fastly drew;

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Aspern Papers by Henry James:

there in her nightdress, in the doorway of her room, watching me; her hands were raised, she had lifted the everlasting curtain that covered half her face, and for the first, the last, the only time I beheld her extraordinary eyes. They glared at me, they made me horribly ashamed. I never shall forget her strange little bent white tottering figure, with its lifted head, her attitude, her expression; neither shall I forget the tone in which as I turned, looking at her, she hissed out passionately, furiously:

"Ah, you publishing scoundrel!"

I know not what I stammered, to excuse myself, to explain;

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 Silas Marner by George Eliot:

among the bushy trees and the rutted lanes, aloof from the currents of industrial energy and Puritan earnestness: the rich ate and drank freely, accepting gout and apoplexy as things that ran mysteriously in respectable families, and the poor thought that the rich were entirely in the right of it to lead a jolly life; besides, their feasting caused a multiplication of orts, which were the heirlooms of the poor. Betty Jay scented the boiling of Squire Cass's hams, but her longing was arrested by the unctuous liquor in which they were boiled; and when the seasons brought round the great merry-makings, they were regarded on all hands as a fine thing for the poor. For the Raveloe feasts were like the rounds of beef and

Silas Marner