Today's Stichomancy for Oscar Wilde

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Chinese Boy and Girl by Isaac Taylor Headland:

Here's a turnip for you and me; Here's a pitcher, we'll go to town; Oh, what a pity, we've fallen down. At which point they both sat down back to back, their arms still locked, and asked and answered the following questions: What do you see in the heavens bright? I see the moon and the stars at night. What do you see in the earth, pray tell? I see in the earth a deep, deep well.

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol:

At length a small iron door appeared before them. "Glory be to God, we have arrived!" said the Tatar in a faint voice, and tried to lift her hand to knock, but had no strength to do so. Andrii knocked hard at the door in her stead. There was an echo as though a large space lay beyond the door; then the echo changed as if resounding through lofty arches. In a couple of minutes, keys rattled, and steps were heard descending some stairs. At length the door opened, and a monk, standing on the narrow stairs with the key and a light in his hands, admitted them. Andrii involuntarily halted at the sight of a Catholic monk--one of those who had aroused such hate and disdain among the Cossacks that they treated them even more inhumanly than they treated

Taras Bulba and Other Tales

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

MUCEDORUS. Thou describest him well, but if I chance to see any such, pray you, where shall I find you, or what's your name?

MOUSE. My name is called master mouse.

MUCEDORUS. Oh, master mouse, I pray you what office might you bear in the court?

MOUSE. Marry, sir, I am a rusher of the stable.

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 Mrs. Warren's Profession by George Bernard Shaw:

every man and woman present will know that as long as poverty makes virtue hideous and the spare pocket-money of rich bachelordom makes vice dazzling, their daily hand-to-hand fight against prostitution with prayer and persuasion, shelters and scanty alms, will be a losing one. There was a time when they were able to urge that though "the white-lead factory where Anne Jane was poisoned" may be a far more terrible place than Mrs Warren's house, yet hell is still more dreadful. Nowadays they no longer believe in hell; and the girls among whom they are working know that they do not believe in it, and would laugh at them if they did. So well have the rescuers learnt that Mrs