Today's Stichomancy for Terry Gilliam

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Somebody's Little Girl by Martha Young:

before. Then Sister Mary Felice and Sister Theckla both said: ``Well! Well!''

* * * * * *

One time it came about that Bessie Bell lay a long time in her little white crib-bed, and she did not know why, and she did not care much why. She did not get up and play in the sand while Sister Mary Felice looked one hour at the little girls playing in the sand.

She scarcely wondered why she did not leave the crib-bed to sit on the long gallery-step in a row with all the other little girls, all

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Second Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln:

should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered--that of neither has been answered fully.

The Almighty has his own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses! for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the

Second Inaugural Address

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

of their neighbours. The normal mind craves for decisions, even wrong or false decisions rather than none. It clutches at comforting falsehoods. It loves to be told, "/There/, don't you worry. That'll be all right. That's /settled./" This war has come as an almost overwhelming challenge to mankind. To some of us it seems as it if were the Sphynx proffering the alternative of its riddle or death. Yet the very urgency of this challenge to think seems to paralyse the critical intelligence of very many people altogether. They will say, "This war is going to produce enormous changes in everything." They will then subside mentally with a feeling of having covered the whole

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 The Riverman by Stewart Edward White:

and aimless remarks. Only Tom North carried on a consecutive, low- voiced conversation with another of about his own age.

" Just the same, Jim," he was saying, " it is a little tough on the boys--this new sluice-gate business. They've been sort of expectin' a chance for a day or two at Redding, and now, if this son of a gun of a wind hangs out, I don't know when we'll make her. The shallows at Bull's was always bad enough, but this is worse."

"Yes, I expected to pick you up 'way below," admitted Jim, whose "turkey," or clothes-bag, at his side proclaimed him a newcomer. "Had quite a tramp to find you."

"This stretch of slack water was always a terror," went on North,