Today's Stichomancy for Yoko Ono

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The White Moll by Frank L. Packard:

you'll be in on that. I guess your nerves have been getting shaky lately, haven't they? Well, you can figure on the swellest rest-cure you ever heard of, Bertha. Take it from me! We're going down to keep the Pug company presently. You blow around to Matty's about midnight and get the election returns. We'll finish the job after that by getting Cloran out of the road some way before morning, and that will let you out for keeps - there won't be any one left to recognize the woman who was with Deemer the night he shuffled out." He backed to the doorway. "Get me? Come over to Matty's and see the rajah's sparklers about midnight. We'll have 'em then - and the she-fiend, too. So long, Bertha!"

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Edingburgh Picturesque Notes by Robert Louis Stevenson:

but support the winter in virtue of a brave and merry heart. One shivering evening, cold enough for frost but with too high a wind, and a little past sundown, when the lamps were beginning to enlarge their circles in the growing dusk, a brace of barefoot lassies were seen coming eastward in the teeth of the wind. If the one was as much as nine, the other was certainly not more than seven. They were miserably clad; and the pavement was so cold, you would have thought no one could lay a naked foot on it unflinching. Yet they came along waltzing, if you please, while the elder sang a tune to give them

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Pellucidar by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

might be in readiness to hasten forth at the first report of the discovery of Dian; but I found the inaction in the face of my deep solicitude for the welfare of my mate so galling that scarce had the several units departed upon their missions before I, too, chafed to be actively engaged upon the search.

It was after my second sleep, subsequent to the de- parture of the warriors, as I recall that I at last went to Ghak with the admission that I could no longer support the intolerable longing to be personally upon the trail of my lost love.

Pellucidar

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 Hellenica by Xenophon:

movement created in the enemy an expectation that he would not do battle on that day. In keeping with this expectation, as soon as he arrived at the mountain-region, he extended his phalanx in long line and piled arms under the high cliffs; and to all appearance he was there encamping. The effect of this manouvre on the enemy in general was to relax the prepared bent of their souls for battle, and to weaken their tactical arrangements. Presently, however, wheeling his regiments (which were marching in column) to the front, with the effect of strengthening the beak-like[13] attack which he proposed to lead himself, at the same instant he gave the order, "Shoulder arms, forward," and led the way, the troops following.