Today's Stichomancy for Jon Stewart

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Bab:A Sub-Deb, Mary Roberts Rinehart by Mary Roberts Rinehart:

a Unaform and written out the names of ten girls who will be home when I am. I here write out the Purpose of our organisation:

To defend the Country and put ourselves into good Physical Condition.--Memo: Look up "physical" as it looks odd, as if mispelled.

MOTTO: To be voted on later.

PASSWORD: Plattsburg.

DUES: Ten dollars each in advance to buy Tent, etcetera.

UNAFORM: Kakhi, with orange-colored necktie. In times of danger the orange color to be changed to something which will not atract the guns of the Enemy.

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair:

everything; some are in groups of two or three, singing, each group its own song. As time goes on there is a variety of drunkenness, among the younger men especially. Some stagger about in each other's arms, whispering maudlin words--others start quarrels upon the slightest pretext, and come to blows and have to be pulled apart. Now the fat policeman wakens definitely, and feels of his club to see that it is ready for business. He has to be prompt--for these two-o'clock-in-the-morning fights, if they once get out of hand, are like a forest fire, and may mean the whole reserves at the station. The thing to do is to crack every fighting head that you see, before there are so many fighting heads that you cannot crack any of them. There is but scant account kept of cracked heads in

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The School For Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan:

SIR PETER. Yes, a good Defence, truly!

MRS. CANDOUR. But for Sir Benjamin, He is as censorious as Miss Sallow.

CRABTREE. Yes and she is a curious Being to pretend to be censorious--an awkward Gawky, without any one good Point under Heaven!

LADY SNEERWELL. Positively you shall not be so very severe. Miss Sallow is a Relation of mine by marriage, and, as for her Person great allowance is to be made--for, let me tell you a woman labours under many disadvantages who tries to pass for a girl at six-and-thirty.

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 Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac:

all ambitions, and partly by his saintly life, the fears which his suspected ability and his powerful presence had roused in the minds of his superiors. His health having seriously failed him during the last year, it seemed probable that he would soon be raised to the office of vicar-general of the archbishopric. His competitors themselves desired the appointment, so that their own plans might have time to mature during the few remaining days which a malady, now become chronic, might allow him. Far from offering the same hopes to rivals, Birotteau's triple chin showed to all who wanted his coveted canonry an evidence of the soundest health; even his gout seemed to them, in accordance with the proverb, an assurance of longevity.