Today's Stichomancy for Roman Polanski

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith:

folly of most people is rather an object of mirth than uneasiness.

HASTINGS. (To him.) Bravo, bravo. Never spoke so well in your whole life. Well, Miss Hardcastle, I see that you and Mr. Marlow are going to be very good company. I believe our being here will but embarrass the interview.

MARLOW. Not in the least, Mr. Hastings. We like your company of all things. (To him.) Zounds! George, sure you won't go? how can you leave us?

HASTINGS. Our presence will but spoil conversation, so we'll retire to the next room. (To him.) You don't consider, man, that we are to manage a little tete-a-tete of our own. [Exeunt.]

She Stoops to Conquer

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus:

not.

Seek then the real nature of the Good in that without whose presence thou wilt not admit the Good to exist in aught else.-- What then? Are not these other things also works of God?--They are; but not preferred to honour, nor are they portions of God. But thou art a thing preferred to honour: thou art thyself a fragment torn from God:--thou hast a portion of Him within thyself. How is it then that thou dost not know thy high descent --dost not know whence thou comest? When thou eatest, wilt thou not remember who thou art that eatest and whom thou feedest? In

The Golden Sayings of Epictetus

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes:

through it for the last time, - and one of the shadows was claimed by its owner to be longer than his own. What changes he saw in that quiet place! Death rained through every roof but his; children came into life, grew to maturity, wedded, faded away, threw themselves away; the whole drama of life was played in that stock-company's theatre of a dozen houses, one of which was his, and no deep sorrow or severe calamity ever entered his dwelling. Peace be to those walls, forever, - the Professor said, - for the many pleasant years he has passed within them!

The Professor has a friend, now living at a distance, who has been with him in many of his changes of place, and who follows him in

The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table

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 Reef by Edith Wharton:

reflecting itself in all his lineaments, was the overwhelming fact of Sophy Viner's passion and of the act by which she had attested it.

Anna was talking again, hurriedly, feverishly, and his soul was wrung by the anguish in her voice. "Do speak at last-- you must speak! I don't want to ask you to harm the girl; but you must see that your silence is doing her more harm than your answering my questions could. You're leaving me only the worst things to think of her...she'd see that herself if she were here. What worse injury can you do her than to make me hate her--to make me feel she's plotted with