Today's Stichomancy for Mel Brooks

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Episode Under the Terror by Honore de Balzac:

oath, and escaped the massacres at the Carmelites by a miracle----"

"HOSANNA!" Sister Agathe exclaimed eagerly, interrupting the stranger, while she watched him with curious eyes.

"That is not the name, I think," he said.

"But, monsieur," Sister Marthe broke in quickly, "we have no priest here, and----"

"In that case you should be more careful and on your guard," he answered gently, stretching out his hand for a breviary that lay on the table. "I do not think that you know Latin, and----"

He stopped; for, at the sight of the great emotion in the faces of the two poor nuns, he was afraid that he had gone too far. They were

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Complete Poems of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

That had tasked his utmost skill; But, alas! his fair ideal Vanished and escaped him still.

From a distant Eastern island Had the precious wood been brought Day and night the anxious master At his toil untiring wrought;

Till, discouraged and desponding, Sat he now in shadows deep, And the day's humiliation Found oblivion in sleep.

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

He in the worst sense construes their denial: The doors, the wind, the glove that did delay him, He takes for accidental things of trial; Or as those bars which stop the hourly dial, Who with a lingering stay his course doth let, Till every minute pays the hour his debt.

'So, so,' quoth he, 'these lets attend the time, Like little frosts that sometime threat the spring. To add a more rejoicing to the prime, And give the sneaped birds more cause to sing. Pain pays the income of each precious thing;

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 Lesson of the Master by Henry James:

was her presence, and the personal red room was there and was full of it, whatever phantoms passed and vanished, emitting incomprehensible sounds. Lastly, he had the resource of staying till every one had come and gone and of believing this grateful to her, though she gave no particular sign. When they were alone together he came to his point. "But St. George did come - last Sunday. I saw him as I looked back."

"Yes; but it was the last time."

"The last time?"

"He said he would never come again."

Paul Overt stared. "Does he mean he wishes to cease to see you?"