Today's Stichomancy for James Brown

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Heroes by Charles Kingsley:

their lamentation, as they sailed on toward their deaths in Crete.

PART III - HOW THESEUS SLEW THE MINOTAUR

AND at last they came to Crete, and to Cnossus, beneath the peaks of Ida, and to the palace of Minos the great king, to whom Zeus himself taught laws. So he was the wisest of all mortal kings, and conquered all the AEgean isles; and his ships were as many as the sea-gulls, and his palace like a marble hill. And he sat among the pillars of the hall, upon his throne of beaten gold, and around him stood the speaking statues which Daidalos had made by his skill. For Daidalos

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche:

Tantaluses of the will, plebeian parvenus, who knew themselves to be incapable of a noble TEMPO or of a LENTO in life and action-- think of Balzac, for instance,--unrestrained workers, almost destroying themselves by work; antinomians and rebels in manners, ambitious and insatiable, without equilibrium and enjoyment; all of them finally shattering and sinking down at the Christian cross (and with right and reason, for who of them would have been sufficiently profound and sufficiently original for an ANTI- CHRISTIAN philosophy?);--on the whole, a boldly daring, splendidly overbearing, high-flying, and aloft-up-dragging class of higher men, who had first to teach their century-and it is the

Beyond Good and Evil

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from On Revenues by Xenophon:

[2] {misthos}, e.g. of the assembly, the senate, and the dicasts.

[3] The {metoikion}. See Plat. "Laws," 850 B; according to Isaeus, ap. Harpocr. s.v., it was 12 drachmae per annum for a male and 6 drachmae for a female.

[4] Or, "the class in question." According to Schneider (who cites the {atimetos metanastes} of Homer, "Il." ix. 648), the reference is not to disabilities in the technical sense, but to humiliating duties, such as the {skaphephoria} imposed on the men, or the {udriaphoria} and {skiadephoria} imposed on their wives and daughters in attendance on the {kanephoroi} at the Panathenaic and other festival processions. See Arist. "Eccles." 730 foll.;

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 A Hero of Our Time by M.Y. Lermontov:

formed a by no means favourable idea of him. Still, certain traits in his character struck me as remarkable. In an hour's time one of the old soldiers brought a steaming samovar and a teapot.

"Won't you have some tea, Maksim Mak- simych?" I called out of the window.

"Thank you. I am not thirsty, somehow."

"Oh, do have some! It is late, you know, and cold!"

"No, thank you" . . .