Today's Stichomancy for Cary Grant

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Dark Lady of the Sonnets by George Bernard Shaw:

You cannot feed capons so.

THE MAN. A good cadence. By your leave _[He makes a note of it]._

THE BEEFEATER. What manner of thing is a cadence, sir? I have not heard of it.

THE MAN. A thing to rule the world with, friend.

THE BEEFEATER. You speak strangely, sir: no offence. But, an't like you, you are a very civil gentleman; and a poor man feels drawn to you, you being, as twere, willing to share your thought with him.

THE MAN. Tis my trade. But alas! the world for the most part will none of my thoughts.

_Lamplight streams from the palace door as it opens from within._

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Aspern Papers by Henry James:

that after all it would be becoming of her to say that I ought to see the rooms first. This did not occur to her and indeed her serenity was mainly what I wanted. Our little bargain was just concluded when the door opened and the younger lady appeared on the threshold. As soon as Miss Bordereau saw her niece she cried out almost gaily, "He will give three thousand--three thousand tomorrow!"

Miss Tita stood still, with her patient eyes turning from one of us to the other; then she inquired, scarcely above her breath, "Do you mean francs?"

"Did you mean francs or dollars?" the old woman asked of me at this.

"I think francs were what you said," I answered, smiling.

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from End of the Tether by Joseph Conrad:

that had gone home, that had gone to America: he remembered in his cups the names of men whose con- nection with the ship had been so short that Massy had almost forgotten its circumstances and could barely re- call their faces. The inebriated voice on the other side of the bulkhead commented upon them all with an ex- traordinary and ingenious venom of scandalous inven- tions. It seems they had all offended him in some way, and in return he had found them all out. He muttered darkly; he laughed sardonically; he crushed them one after another; but of his chief, Massy, he babbled with

End of the Tether

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 Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft:

both the Esquimaux wizards and the Louisiana swamp-priests had chanted to their kindred idols was something very like this: the word-divisions being guessed at from traditional breaks in the phrase as chanted aloud: "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn." Legrasse had one point in advance of Professor Webb, for several among his mongrel prisoners had repeated to him what older celebrants had told them the words meant. This text, as given, ran something like this: "In his house at R'lyeh

Call of Cthulhu