Today's Stichomancy for Alec Guinness

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Options by O. Henry:

breakfast. Goodloe was charmed. He recited--Keats, I think it was, and Kelly or Shelley--while I broiled the bacon. We were getting ready to cross the river, which was little more than a shallow creek there, and explore the many sharp-peaked cedar-covered hills on the other side.

"My good Ulysses," said Goodloe, slapping me on the shoulder while I was washing the tin breakfast-plates, "let me see the enchanted document once more. I believe it gives directions for climbing the hill shaped like a pack-saddle. I never saw a pack-saddle. What is it like, Jim?"

"Score one against culture," said I. "I'll know it when I see it."

Options

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Richard III by William Shakespeare:

Make war upon themselves-brother to brother, Blood to blood, self against self. O, preposterous And frantic outrage, end thy damned spleen, Or let me die, to look on death no more! QUEEN ELIZABETH. Come, come, my boy; we will to sanctuary. Madam, farewell. DUCHESS. Stay, I will go with you. QUEEN ELIZABETH. You have no cause. ARCHBISHOP. [To the QUEEN] My gracious lady, go. And thither bear your treasure and your goods.

Richard III

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tik-Tok of Oz by L. Frank Baum:

my mistress, Ozma of Oz!"

Hank slowly turned around until his heels were toward the others. Then he said stubbornly:

"I am not mistaken in my statement, nor will I admit there can be a sweeter girl alive than Betsy Bobbin. If you want to fight, come on--I'm ready for you!"

While they hesitated, eyeing Hank's heels doubtfully, a merry peal of laughter startled the animals and turning their heads they beheld three lovely girls standing just within the richly

Tik-Tok of Oz

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 Waste Land by T. S. Eliot:

118. Cf. Webster: 'Is the wind in that door still?'

126. Cf. Part I, l. 37, 48.

138. Cf. the game of chess in Middleton's _Women beware Women_.

III. THE FIRE SERMON

176. V. Spenser, PROTHALAMION.

192. Cf. _The Tempest_, i. ii.

196. Cf. Marvell, _To His Coy Mistress_.

197. Cf. Day, _Parliament of Bees_:

When of the sudden, listening, you shall hear, A noise of horns and hunting, which shall bring Actaeon to Diana in the spring,

The Waste Land