Today's Stichomancy for George Bernard Shaw

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Arrow of Gold by Joseph Conrad:

"Do you say these horrors to make me tremble?"

"Oh, you needn't tremble. There shall be no crime. I need not risk the scaffold, since now you are safe. But I entered this room meditating resolutely on the ways of murder, calculating possibilities and chances without the slightest compunction. It's all over now. It was all over directly I saw you here, but it had been so near that I shudder yet."

She must have been very startled because for a time she couldn't speak. Then in a faint voice:

"For me! For me!" she faltered out twice.

"For you - or for myself? Yet it couldn't have been selfish. What

The Arrow of Gold

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith:

the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene, he asked if I had not a good hand at making punch. Yes, Kate, he asked your father if he was a maker of punch!

MISS HARDCASTLE. One of us must certainly be mistaken.

HARDCASTLE. If he be what he has shown himself, I'm determined he shall never have my consent.

MISS HARDCASTLE. And if he be the sullen thing I take him, he shall never have mine.

HARDCASTLE. In one thing then we are agreed--to reject him.

MISS HARDCASTLE. Yes: but upon conditions. For if you should find him less impudent, and I more presuming--if you find him more respectful,

She Stoops to Conquer

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare:

In hand with all things, nought at all effecting.

Here kennel'd in a brake she finds a hound, 9l3 And asks the weary caitiff for his master, And there another licking of his wound, Gainst venom'd sores the only sovereign plaster; 916 And here she meets another sadly scowling, To whom she speaks, and he replies with howling.

When he hath ceas'd his ill-resounding noise, Another flap-mouth'd mourner, black and grim, 920 Against the welkin volleys out his voice; Another and another answer him,

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 A Hero of Our Time by M.Y. Lermontov:

"'Hunting.'

"'When did he go -- to-day?'

"'She was silent, as if she found a difficulty in answering.

"'No, he has been gone since yesterday,' she said at length, with a heavy sigh.

"'Surely nothing has happened to him!'

"'Yesterday I thought and thought the whole day,' she answered through her tears; 'I imagined all sorts of misfortunes. At one time I fancied that he had been wounded by a wild