Today's Stichomancy for Chris Elliott

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte:

have sojourned."

"Yet I have been with good people; far better than you: a hundred times better people; possessed of ideas and views you never entertained in your life: quite more refined and exalted."

"Who the deuce have you been with?"

"If you twist in that way you will make me pull the hair out of your head; and then I think you will cease to entertain doubts of my substantiality."

"Who have you been with, Jane?"

"You shall not get it out of me to-night, sir; you must wait till to-morrow; to leave my tale half told, will, you know, be a sort of

Jane Eyre

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

And the guard--what of them? Evidently they, too, had been so much surprised by the unprecedented action of the stranger that they had not even challenged; but that they had no thought to let the thing go unnoticed was quickly evidenced by the skirring of motors upon the landing-stage and the quick shooting airward of a long-lined patrol boat.

Thuvia watched it dart swiftly eastward. So, too, did other eyes watch.

Within the dense shadows of the skeel grove, in a wide avenue beneath o'erspreading foliage, a flier hung a

Thuvia, Maid of Mars

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister:

are both trying to kill liberty. And the soul of Uncle Sam has turned into a dollar-inside his great, big, strong, triumphant flesh; so that even his new religion, his own special invention, his last offering to the creeds of the world, his gatherer of converted hordes, his Christian Science, is based upon physical benefit."

John touched the horses. "You're particularly cheerful to-day!"

"No. I merely summarize what I'm seeing."

"Well, a moral awakening will come," he declared.

"Inevitably. To-morrow, perhaps. The flesh has had a good, long, prosperous day, and the hour of the spirit must be near striking. And the moral awakening will be followed by a moral slumber, since, in the

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 Reign of King Edward the Third by William Shakespeare:

Their streaming Ensigns, wrought of coloured silk, Like to a meadow full of sundry flowers, Adorns the naked bosom of the earth: Majestical the order of their course, Figuring the horned Circle of the Moon: And on the top gallant of the Admiral And likewise all the handmaids of his train The Arms of England and of France unite Are quartered equally by Heralds' art: Thus, tightly carried with a merry gale, They plough the Ocean hitherward amain.