Today's Stichomancy for Thomas Edison

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling:

where they die. Hast thou ever heard me speak of the Bandar-log till today?"

"No," said Mowgli in a whisper, for the forest was very still now Baloo had finished.

"The Jungle-People put them out of their mouths and out of their minds. They are very many, evil, dirty, shameless, and they desire, if they have any fixed desire, to be noticed by the Jungle People. But we do not notice them even when they throw nuts and filth on our heads."

He had hardly spoken when a shower of nuts and twigs spattered down through the branches; and they could hear coughings and

The Jungle Book

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Russia in 1919 by Arthur Ransome:

The most noticeable thing in Petrograd to anyone returning after six months' absence is the complete disappearance of armed men. The town seems to have returned to a perfectly peaceable condition in the sense that the need for revolutionary patrols has gone. Soldiers walking about no longer carry their rifles, and the picturesque figures of the revolution who wore belts of machine-gun cartridges slung about their persons have gone.

The second noticeable thing, especially in the Nevsky, which was once crowded with people too fashionably dressed, is the general lack of new clothes. I did not see anybody

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie:

"No," admitted Boris at last sullenly, "you do not."

"Thank God, he's not a mind reader," thought Tommy. Aloud he pursued his advantage:

"And why am I so confident? Because I know something that puts me in a position to propose a bargain."

"A bargain?" The bearded man took him up sharply.

"Yes--a bargain. My life and liberty against----" He paused.

"Against what?"

The group pressed forward. You could have heard a pin drop.

Slowly Tommy spoke.

"The papers that Danvers brought over from America in the

Secret Adversary

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 Children of the Night by Edwin Arlington Robinson:

Pulled by a fiend? or gods, without knowing it? Do we shut from ourselves our own salvation, -- Or what do we do! I tell you, Dominie, There are times in the lives of us poor devils When heaven and hell get mixed. Though conscience May come like a whisper of Christ to warn us Away from our sins, it is lost or laughed at, -- And then we fall. And for all who have fallen -- Even for him -- I hold no malice, Nor much compassion: a mightier mercy Than mine must shrive him. -- And I -- I am going