Today's Stichomancy for Kelly Hu

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from War and the Future by H. G. Wells:

last technical difficulties in our way to decisive victory and a permanent peace; they also afford a reason for straining every nerve to bring about a decision and peace soon. At the risk of seeming an imaginative alarmist I would like to point out the reasons these things disclose for hurrying this war to a decision and doing our utmost to arrange the world's affairs so as to make another war improbable. Already these serio-comic Tanks, weighing something over twenty tons or so, have gone slithering around and sliding over dead and wounded men. That is not an incident for sensitive minds to dwell upon, but it is a mere little child's play anticipation of what the big land ironclads

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen:

"A trifling part," said he, "and not at all to my taste, and such a one as I certainly would not accept again; but I was determined to make no difficulties. Lord Ravenshaw and the duke had appropriated the only two characters worth playing before I reached Ecclesford; and though Lord Ravenshaw offered to resign his to me, it was impossible to take it, you know. I was sorry for _him_ that he should have so mistaken his powers, for he was no more equal to the Baron--a little man with a weak voice, always hoarse after the first ten minutes. It must have injured the piece materially;

Mansfield Park

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Oedipus Trilogy by Sophocles:

How in a blood-feud join for an untracked deed of shame?

(Ant. 2) All wise are Zeus and Apollo, and nothing is hid from their ken; They are gods; and in wits a man may surpass his fellow men; But that a mortal seer knows more than I know--where Hath this been proven? Or how without sign assured, can I blame Him who saved our State when the winged songstress came, Tested and tried in the light of us all, like gold assayed? How can I now assent when a crime is on Oedipus laid?

CREON Friends, countrymen, I learn King Oedipus

Oedipus Trilogy

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 King Henry VI by William Shakespeare:

WARWICK. Ay, see the bishop be not overborne.

SOMERSET. Methinks my lord should be religious, And know the office that belongs to such.

WARWICK. Methinks his lordship should be humbler; It fitteth not a prelate so to plead.

SOMERSET. Yes, when his holy state is touch'd so near.

WARWICK.