Today's Stichomancy for Larry Flynt

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Spirit of the Border by Zane Grey:

ring of that rifle. He had felt the zip of a bullet which could just as readily have found his brain as Half King's. He had stood there as fair a mark as the cruel Huron, yet the Avenger had not chosen him. Was he reserved for a different fate? Was not such a death too merciful for the frontier Deathshead? He yelled in his craven fear:

"Le vent de la Mort!"

The well known, dreaded appellation aroused the savages from a fearful stupor into a fierce manifestation of hatred. A tremendous yell rent the air. Instantly the scene changed.

Chapter XXVI.

In the confusion the missionaries carried Young and Edwards into Mr. Wells'

The Spirit of the Border

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde:

is undoubtedly a most interesting study. Mr. W. Carew Hazlitt, his latest biographer, to whom I am indebted for many of the facts contained in this memoir, and whose little book is, indeed, quite invaluable in its way, is of opinion that his love of art and nature was a mere pretence and assumption, and others have denied to him all literary power. This seems to me a shallow, or at least a mistaken, view. The fact of a man being a poisoner is nothing against his prose. The domestic virtues are not the true basis of art, though they may serve as an excellent advertisement for second-rate artists. It is possible that De Quincey exaggerated his critical powers, and I cannot help saying again that there is

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Polly of the Circus by Margaret Mayo:

"Not so long as she wishes to stay."

"You won't?" Strong saw that he must try a new attack. He came close to Douglas and spoke with a marked insinuation. "If you was a friend to the girl, you wouldn't want the whole congregation a-pointin' fingers at her."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that you're living here alone with her and it looks bad--bad for the girl, and bad for YOU--and folks is talkin'."

"Are you trying to tell me that my people are evil-minded enough to think that I--" Douglas stopped. He could not frame the question. "I don't believe it," he concluded shortly.

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 Golden Threshold by Sarojini Naidu:

Rise, brothers, rise, the wakening skies pray to the morning light, The wind lies asleep in the arms of the dawn like a child that has cried all night. Come, let us gather our nets from the shore, and set our catamarans free, To capture the leaping wealth of the tide, for we are the sons of the sea.

No longer delay, let us hasten away in the track of the sea-gull's call, The sea is our mother, the cloud is our brother,