Today's Stichomancy for George Orwell

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The School For Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan:

I believe are framed in the Wainscot. [Going.]

SIR BENJAMIN. And I'm very sorry to hear also some bad stories against him. [Going.]

CRABTREE. O He has done many mean things--that's certain!

SIR BENJAMIN. But however as He is your Brother---- [Going.]

CRABTREE. We'll tell you all another opportunity. [Exeunt.]

LADY SNEERWELL. Ha! ha! ha! 'tis very hard for them to leave

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane:

sight on the island. She measured time by means of sprees, and was eternally swollen and dishevelled.

One day the young man, Pete, who as a lad had smitten the Devil's Row urchin in the back of the head and put to flight the antagonists of his friend, Jimmie, strutted upon the scene. He met Jimmie one day on the street, promised to take him to a boxing match in Williamsburg, and called for him in the evening.

Maggie observed Pete.

He sat on a table in the Johnson home and dangled his checked legs with an enticing nonchalance. His hair was curled down over his forehead in an oiled bang. His rather pugged nose seemed to

Maggie: A Girl of the Streets

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic:

box he's had since I've been here--that is, in six weeks-- besides two baskets full of rose-bushes. I don't know what he does with them. He carries them off himself somewhere. I've had kind of half a notion that he's figurin' on getting married. I can't think of anything else that would make a man spend money like water--just for flowers and bushes. They do get foolish, you know, when they've got marriage on the brain."

Theron found himself only imperfectly following the theories of the young philosopher. It was his fact that monopolized the minister's attention.

The Damnation of Theron Ware

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 United States Declaration of Independence:

of a free People.

Nor have We been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them,

United States Declaration of Independence